


the water will support the whale

by ratherembarrassing



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-19 18:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherembarrassing/pseuds/ratherembarrassing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next morning the power’s back on, Santana’s passed out on their couch, and Rachel’s wondering what on earth she’s doing here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as a prompt i received after asking for prompts so i could practice writing rachel. i got a little carried away, and i'm not entirely sure how i feel about the results, but there you have it, and i'd love to hear what people think.
> 
> tentatively five parts in total, and should be done in the next week.

Vodka, tequila, gin.

They're not the only supplies she and Kurt have collected, but they are, according to everyone, the most important. They also have bread, candles, and batteries.

"Kurt, do we have orange juice?" Rachel calls down the aisle. "And please don't start with me, again. I'm sorry if it offends your sensibilities, but people like what they like."

For whatever reason, this is what they fight about.

She isn't sure what she thought they would fight about, but it's become clear over the last couple of months that they are going to fight about two things: what Rachel mixes with her alcohol, and who should have won lead actress in a musical at the 1984 Tonys.

"Here," Kurt sighs, dropping a bottle of juice into the basket hanging from her arm. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

 _New Yorkers are weird_ , she thinks as she wanders along the dairy case, looking for some vegan cheese. It's just some rain, but everyone is preparing like it's the end of the world. And in New York City's case, that means getting drunk and violating fire codes.

"You two are the weirdest people I see each day," Johnny behind the register says when they're done debating how much toilet paper they can be bothered carrying the two blocks back to their apartment.

"We can't be the weirdest  _every_  day," Rachel laughs. It's the same thing she says every day when Johnny says that.

"You, you're starting to fit in," he nods at Rachel. "Homie in those pants? Who let him off the island?"

"I heard that," Kurt says. "These pants are McQueen. Show some respect."

He comes over with a stack of Poptarts boxes. "Don't say anything," he sniffs, dropping them on the counter. "Also, I might need a box of condoms."

…

It starts to rain as they're walking home, and they both scream as they run towards the entrance to their building, water splashing against her bare legs.

She finds it constantly surprising that she even has a place to call "hers" -- or "theirs", but she's talking about herself here. The simple act of telling someone that she lives in New York City still gives her a thrill, but it's the keys on her keychain, collecting the mail, even carrying home groceries in the rain that makes her believe that, yes, she does in fact live in New York City.

Living in the dorms was like summer camp, but this finally feels like real life.

…

"He did not!" she cries, not caring that she's getting loud because the wind is howling outside and she can hardly hear herself think.

Kurt buffs his nails against his shirt, rocking back in his seat. "He did."

"Oh my god, this is so exciting! What are you going to wear?"

Maybe she's going a little bit overboard, but it's not like she's going on dates that she can get excited about. Finn appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing again seems to have scared Brody off, and honestly, she doesn't blame him. If she's tired of the drama in her life, she can't imagine anyone else wanting to deal with it.

"I have a few ideas," Kurt says, jumping up. "Follow me to my lair."

She grabs her glass, and then for good measure brings the gin bottle, too. Kurt's not going to listen to anything she has to say about his fashion choices anyway.

…

"Oh, damn, there we go," Kurt sighs, hitting refresh on his browser. "Internet's out."

"God help us all," Rachel giggles from her place hanging upside down over the edge of Kurt's bed. "I still have 3G on my phone."

She uploads a photo of the empty gin bottle and a candle to Instagram, 'Bushwick storm party!' and '#supplies' underneath, cross-posting it to Twitter but not Facebook because parents don't need to see this.

They've killed at least three hours working out Kurt's outfit for his date-slash-whatever, and the rain started to get noisy some time around the kilt that was very quickly dismissed.

Kurt's looking through his scarves when their intercom lets out a burst of static and what sounds like somebody saying, "Would you like fries with that?"

Kurt frowns from his place on the rug. "Who on Earth would be out there in this weather?"

"Don't answer it, it's probably a homeless person."

"Rachel!" Kurt's disapproving face is going to give him premature lines, but she's in a happy, alcohol fueled daze, and she's not in the mood for Kurt's freakout about how he's going to need plastic surgery by the time he's twenty-five, so she doesn't mention it.

"Who else would be out there?" she asks instead, since she knows about ten people in all of New York well enough to know their first and last names, and only four of them might know where she lives. One of them lives with her, two of them would have to find it on her school records, and the other is a nice guy who she hasn't seen in a few weeks.

"Rachel, there are no homeless people in Bushwick. It's probably a drunk hipster." Kurt hauls himself to his feet, and she has no choice but to roll off the edge of the bed to follow, landing on her feet as gracefully as possible.

"You should definitely not answer it then," she calls after him.

"I'm not." He's about to switch the intercom off, when the static clears up for a moment, "...if you don't open this door, Berry, I'm going to come up there and undeviate your septum..." coming through clearly.

"Oh my god, Santana?" Rachel shouts at the speaker, before realizing the person on the other end can't hear her. She pulls Kurt out of the way, slapping at one of the buttons. "Santana?"

"No, Rachel, it's the Queen of England," comes the exasperated reply, nearly drowned out by the sound of rain. "Yes, it's me, and yes it's raining out here. Let me in!"

Rachel holds down the other button for the front door, the intercom giving up cooperating any longer and letting out a screech of feedback, while Kurt pulls the apartment door open. It's not raining on the landing, but they both lean around the doorframe like it might be, watching the top of the stairs.

This is so different from Kurt's arrival, which was equally unexpected but came at exactly the moment she needed him. Now, she feels like she's finally ready to begin this new part of her life, the Funny Lady to her high school Funny Girl, and she wants to fill the cast with the only the best supporting actors and guest stars. This metaphor might be getting away from her, but the point is friendly faces -- okay, familiar faces -- are rare these days.

"Oh dear god," Kurt bursts out laughing as Santana reaches the landing, "I'm sorry. But you look like a drowned rat."

Santana, actually looking like a drowned  _human_  and incredibly pissed off about it, drops her suitcase with a very loud thud and shoves her duffle bag into Kurt's arms, just in time for--

"Oh my god, what are you doing here!" Rachel cries, stumbling around Kurt to throw her arms around Santana's soggy shoulders.

"Just thought I'd drop by," Santana says, actually letting Rachel hug her for a moment before extricating herself from Rachel's arms. "If you two alcoholics had a working intercom, you might have heard me buzzing half an hour ago."

Kurt pushes off the wall he's sagged against under the weight of Santana's bag, dropping it inside the door. He looks at Rachel, and she pointedly jerks her head in the direction of the apartment.

"Can we offer you a drink?"

"Took you long enough," she says, heading into the apartment. "I bought cupcakes -- housewarming gift and all that -- but they might be a little soggy."

Maybe Rachel's just drunk enough to be pleased by the surprise, instead of annoyed that Santana didn't give them any notice she was coming. Either way, she bounces inside after her, leaving Kurt to bring the bags.

…

The next morning the power's back on, Santana's passed out on their couch, and Rachel's wondering what on earth she's doing here.

There's an awkward moment when Santana's blindly stumbling out of their bathroom, hair a mess and wearing a three sizes too big shirt, and Rachel just stares at her. She doesn't mean to be rude, it's just so weird that Santana is in her home.

…

Kurt's sitting beside her as they both gape at Santana wolfing down a burger. The storm doesn't appear to have done much damage beyond washing the falling leaves everywhere. It's a little chilly, but the sky is clear.

It's 10am and they've taken Santana to the diner they consider "theirs" because Rachel wants to show Santana the real New York City, starting with the fact that you can get awesome food at 10am on a Tuesday within a block of your apartment. Also because all three of them are incredibly hungover, and Rachel desperately needed coffee.

"Okay, I don't have class until four, so if you want we can go to Central Park, or the Empire State Building, or whatever you like."

"I, sadly, have work to attend to at Vogue," Kurt says, spine straightening with pride. Rachel doesn't think he's ever going to get tired of telling people where he works.

"I don't care," Santana shrugs. "Whatever you want to show me's cool with me."

Rachel and Kurt share a glance, and Kurt shrugs. Rachel has no idea how to deal with people who aren't excited about being in New York City, but she'll make do.

…

Santana pulls a face as Rachel leads them into the building, but the view from the top of the New Museum is one of Rachel's favorites.

They have the space to themselves. Santana wanders around, coming to stand by the floor to ceiling window, staring out at the view of downtown and the bay, although Rachel doesn't think she's really seeing it.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asks, hovering behind her, squinting against the glare of the sunlight.

Santana's hardly said anything since they left Kurt back at the diner. She guesses Santana took a cab the night before, because she didn't have any idea how to buy a Metrocard and her eyes had bugged out at the price. Rachel could see her popping her ears as they crossed under the river, and she'd nudged Santana's knee. "Manhattan," she'd whispered with a grin, but Santana had just nodded.

"Brittany and I split, and I dropped out of college."

Rachel's mouth opens to say something,  _anything_ , but what exactly do you say to that without it sounding completely meaningless? No one ever managed to say anything at all comforting to her after Finn put her on a train and ran off to join the Army.

This painful laugh comes from Santana, and she turns around, leaning back against the glass. "Yeah, I'm kind of speechless about it myself."

"I'm really s--"

"If you say you're sorry, I'll punch you."

Rachel doesn't think she means it, but with Santana you never know. "Okay."

"I'm moving here," Santana says, voice tightening further. "I'm gonna be on stage, and Britt'll come later, and then, I don't know. We'll see."

"How does-- I mean, are your parents okay with this? I mean," she continues without giving Santana a chance to answer, a million thoughts tumbling around in her head. "You're welcome to stay with us until you get settled, of course. You should audition for NYADA next semester! Oh, this will be great. Kurt's so busy all the time now and--"

"Rachel!" Santana cuts her off. "Thank you. For the place to stay."

Even though Santana seems anything but excited, Rachel squeals a tiny bit, unable to stop herself from hugging Santana as she stands there stiffly.

"We're going to have so much fun!"

…

…

That doesn't exactly turn out to be true.

Rachel does not understand how anyone could find walking along the High Line drinking chai lattes boring. It's the perfect place to just wander; a tiny strip of nature surrounded by the City. She thinks it's romantic, walking along in the twilight.

Admittedly, Santana's been a little out of sorts since she arrived. Rachel's taken her to Central Park and The Met and Santana meets her after class most days and they've been all over SoHo and the West Village. But, before today, Santana hasn't complained about anything they've done -- in fact, on the days she knows Rachel doesn't have class she always asks what they're doing -- so Rachel's choosing to take the complaint as a positive sign.

"Can we just grab dinner and go home?" Santana says, tossing her empty cup away.

Apparently the one place Santana likes in New York City is Kurt and Rachel's diner.

…

…

The upperclass dancers like her, or are stupidly entertained by her battle against Cassie July— either way, even after Brody fades out of her life they still talk to her, which is nice. They didn't know her pre-makeover, so she has no reason to be quietly annoyed like she is with the girls in her dance class who kiss her ass now that she has an "in" at Vogue. She's not even sure how Lara and Tegan know Kurt exists.

She's having lunch with them in a cafe by the main NYADA building after her final class for the semester, and Michaela, a senior who's in the chorus in  _Chicago_ , is just inviting her to a post-class, pre-finals party when Santana shows up.

"Rachel," is all she says in greeting, and Rachel waves up at her from her spot in their booth.

"Girlfriend?" Michaela asks, looking between Rachel and Santana."She's invited, too. You're invited, too," she says to Santana.

"Santana's not my girlfriend," she corrects, smiling at Santana so she doesn't get the wrong idea.

"She isn't?" Rachel nods. "Honey," Michaela eyes Santana up and down, "you're definitely invited now."

Santana blushes to the roots of her hair, but Rachel thinks it's nice that people don't just assume she's straight. And that they'd assume she'd be dating a girl as pretty as Santana.

…

The party's in Hell's Kitchen, and Rachel makes them stop to get some wine on the way.

"Would you at least put it in your bag," Santana whispers anxiously, eyeing the people around them on the train. "I don't want to get arrested."

"Whatever happened to that girl from Lima Heights Adjacent?" Rachel says slyly. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you're afraid of the NYPD."

Santana ignores her for the rest of the trip. Thankfully the party's only a couple of blocks from the subway, and they huddle inside their coats as they hurry.

It's already loud and crowded when they arrive -- she still hasn't quite worked out how to time her subway trips properly, but she can work with a late entrance. Santana hovers nearby while Rachel chats to some people from her stage direction class, but she excuses herself to go get another drink and it's a while before Rachel notices how long she's been gone.

She's having an awkward conversation with Brody, even as she keeps a lookout for Santana, when she appears at Rachel's shoulder.

"Is it okay if I... go," is all she says, head jerking in the direction of the front door.

"Oh, are you not—" Rachel frowns, and then looks over to the door. Some friend of Michaela's is standing there watching them, or she's watching Santana, and oh. " _Oh._ "

"Yeah. Don't wait up," Santana says awkwardly, before turning and disappearing into the crowd for a moment. Rachel watches her walking over to the girl—Rachel thinks her name is Maria—and it's so _weird_  watching them, knowing what they're leaving to do. She doesn't know Santana well enough to know this about her, even with their, in hindsight very odd, shared history with Finn, and she turns away, swallowing down her drink.

…

 _Coffee, coffee, coffee_ , is repeating over and over in her brain, and she runs right into Santana on the sidewalk as she heads towards the bodega.

"Hey, how was your, um—"

Santana's eyebrow quirks, even as she still manages to look uncomfortable. "Yeah, please don't finish that question."

"Okay, yes. That is not something I need to, um..." she trails off, shaking her head. She really needs coffee and not details about whatever Santana got up to last night. "Anyway, I'm going in to rehearse for a while. Kurt's at some art exhibition with Isabelle, so the apartment's all yours for the day."

"Cool," Santana nods. "I'll try not to burn the building down. Oh, wait," Santana nudges her and finally cracks a smile, "that's you."

"I'm never cooking for you again," Rachel says as they walk away from each other.

"Technically you never did!"

…

When she gets home, Kurt and Santana are in the kitchen making a pizza.

This is not something she would ever have imagined happening, basically  _ever_. For starters, Kurt has flour all down his shirt, and he doesn't even seem bothered.

"Hi," she says, but it comes out like a question.

Kurt waves her over. "You're home! Come make pizza."

She drops her dance bag by the door, making a mental note not to leave her sweaty clothes in there overnight, and joins them. "What are we making?"

"Fun," Santana replies, flicking flour at Rachel from the tips of her fingers.

The dough Kurt and Santana have already made is vegan, and it's silly, but they didn't know she was going to be joining them—she's been so busy they probably expected she wouldn't—and the fact that they thought of her anyway leaves a burn of happiness in her chest.

She grabs a shower while the pizza's cooking, and when she returns, toweling her hair dry, there's a glass of juice waiting for her in front of her spot on the couch.

Kurt's chosen  _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ for them to watch, and she happily settles into her seat, grabbing some pizza when Kurt brings it over.

"Have you seen it?" she asks Santana when she flops down beside her.

"Are you kidding? This looks ridiculously gay, and not the kind I enjoy."

It's not like it's Rachel's favorite movie ever, but her dads used to sing The Origin of Love in the car to school when she was in the first grade, so it's got good associations. She knows her childhood wasn't exactly the same as most people's, though people might be surprised at how normal it was, but when she hears Santana say things like that she's torn between being even more appreciative of how amazing her parents are, and wanting to trade them so someone like Santana could have had the benefit of having them.

"Well I think you'll enjoy it anyway," Rachel says, rolling her eyes. "Even if it's not your kind of gay."

…

Rachel's humming The Origin of Love under her breath as she comes out of the bathroom, and is about to grab her bag and switch off the lights when a sound from the couch stops her.

Maybe a movie about the ambiguity of the concept of soul mates wasn't the best idea for someone currently without her own, if the muffled sound of hitching breaths is any indication.

She tiptoes the rest of the way over to the entrance, and when she kills the lights there's a pause. She's about to say something, if she could just think of what, when the breathing resumes and she can hear Santana pressing herself harder into the couch.

It's not her place to say anything, and she doesn't think Santana would appreciate it anyway.

…

...

"Come outside."

"No."

"Come outside!" Santana whines, tossing a pillow at her.

The covers pulled over her head are doing nothing to block Santana out. She knows she isn't being the best host right now, nor for the last week, but she's tired. It's the first day of her winter break, and she just wants to  _sleep_. Instead, apparently there's been enough snow to stick for the first time, and Santana wants to go out and... Rachel has no idea what Santana wants to do out there, but she doesn't care.

"No!"

"Can you two both please be quiet," Kurt calls from his side of the apartment. "Some of us have auditions to rehearse for."

"Please, you're just going to drop out anyway," Santana says, wandering away from where she's leaning against Rachel's bed, and Rachel buries her head under her pillow as Kurt lets out a yell of frustration, which she joins him in.

"I am not going to drop out!" This is an ongoing argument.

Santana's been there for almost a month, and she hasn't found a place to live yet. Rachel's doesn't think she's been looking very hard; in fact she thinks Santana spends all her time coming up with ways to annoy Kurt about how he's going to bail on NYADA.

Santana's moved away from Rachel's side of the apartment, but it doesn't make a difference when she and Kurt are both shouting at the top of their lungs -- and Kurt's going to regret that immensely when he has to sing tomorrow.

"Can you please just shut up and get out," she shouts over the argument, and their voices stop.

There's silence for a moment, and then there's some scuffing noises followed by the front door slamming shut.

"Well that was harsh," Kurt says from somewhere close by.

"I meant you, too," she snaps, and immediately regrets it, tossing her pillow aside with a sigh. "Sorry. I'm just really tired."

Santana taking over their living area meant she didn't have enough room to practice anymore, so she'd been going into school a lot more to get some time in the dance studio, and it was easier to stay and use the rehearsal booths for all her other practice. The closer she'd gotten to finals, the later she would stay, and now that it's all over she's realizing just how drained she is.

Kurt's standing in the gap between the sheets that make up her walls, arms folded. "This isn't working, is it," he says, stepping closer.

He's not wrong. But that doesn't mean she wants Santana to leave. "We can't kick her out."

Santana is annoying as hell. But, and Rachel can't believe she's come to feel this way, it's kind of endearing. When she's not sulking, she's intense about things in a way that Rachel recognizes (The day Santana managed to navigate the subway on her own she came home talking a mile a minute about everything she'd seen, and it was the cutest thing. But mostly she's intense about how much people on Craigslist suck and coming up with insults. It's funny when it's not directed at her.) and it's nice to have that around. It makes her wish they'd managed an actual friendship in high school.

But more than anything, she sees how close Santana is to drowning, from being here and being without Brittany, and Rachel gets that. If Kurt hadn't arrived when he did, she's not sure what she would have done.

"I think we should make it official," she nods, the idea growing in her head.

"Make what official?" Kurt asks suspiciously.

"Santana living here. She should get some walls, and stop living out of her bags, and, I don't know, pay rent." She pushes the covers off her legs and climbs out of the bed. "Yes. She should live here. It'll be good."

Kurt makes that face where he's trying not to show how much he hates an idea but is failing miserably. "Is there anything I can do to talk you out of this?"

"Nope," she says, kissing his cheek as she moves past him in the 'doorway'. "Now come wait with me. She won't be long; I know she's forgotten her coat."

…

They're sitting on the couch waiting when Santana returns, shivering visibly—Rachel just knows these things, okay.

"I'll be gone in the morning," she says, and her voice makes Rachel frown.

"No you won't," she says, standing up. "We're going to Ikea."

Santana just stands there, fidgeting with the strap on her purse. "Why?"

"Because you need a bed," Rachel replies, coming around to stand in front of Santana. "Rent's $500 a month, and you have to buy your own walls. Also, some earplugs."

Santana just blinks at her, frown creasing the top of her nose. "What?"

"You're officially moving in. We've decided," she says, waving between Kurt and herself, and so what if Kurt didn't exactly agree, he'll come around eventually. He'll see this is the right thing to do.

"I am?" Santana asks, and Rachel's incredibly sorry that she snapped the way she did, because she can't deal with Santana's voice sounding so small.

"Yes," she says, and then Santana's hugging her, arms all awkward angles like she's not sure how this works.

The back of her shirt is getting wrinkled in Santana's fists, but she doesn't mind, not when she can hear Santana's mumbled "thank you" against her shoulder.

"Oh god, you two are gross," Kurt moans from the couch, and Rachel can see Santana flipping him off out of the corner of her eye.

…

Once Santana gets herself under control, Rachel suggests they go look at the snow. She's not sleeping anyway, so why not.

"We don't have to," Santana says, but she's clearly trying not to look pleased.

They walk two blocks, fat snowflakes catching on her hair and coat, and then Santana pulls them into McKibben Park.

"This is where you wanted to go?" Rachel asks. Santana doesn't answer, just leads them over to the swings and wipes the snow off one of the seats.

"Sit," she says, and when Rachel doesn't move she manhandles her into the seat. She wipes the other seat off before settling herself into it, but Rachel still has no idea why they're here.

"Swing," Santana says when Rachel just stares at her, so she guesses that's why they're here.

So she swings. The snow's not falling heavily, but it's enough to look pretty, and she's swinging back and forth, not very high, when Santana breaks the silence. "I used to have a swing set in our yard at home."

Rachel doesn't really know what to say to that, so she settles for an encouraging noise.

"Britt and I," she continues haltingly, "we would sneak out at night to swing in the snow."

"Aw, that's cute." She didn't know Brittany and Santana in elementary school, but she can imagine them as two little girls in their nightshirts and coats, maybe wearing rainboots, sneaking across the yard hand in hand.

Santana lets her swing bleed its momentum, coming to a stop with her feet still pulled up off the ground. "She's not coming to New York."

"Of course she is—" but she stops when Santana shakes her head.

"She told me. Now that her grades are up, some dance school in California wants to give her a free ride."

"I'm sorry," she says, not knowing what else to say. She just asked Santana to live with them, and Santana said yes, but… "You could go to California."

Rachel watches a puff of breath materialize in front of Santana's face. "I don't want to."

"Oh." She doesn't say she's glad, but she is.

"Here's where I want to be," Santana says, pushing off the ground again. "If there's one thing I know, it's that I'm not very good at pretending something that isn't true."

They swing for a little while longer, until Santana kicks off her shoes and then throws herself off the swing at the top of its arc, landing like a gymnast and doing that chest thing they do when they're finished.

"Come on, Grumpy LuPone, time to get you back to bed," she says, catching Rachel's foot to slow her down.

…

…

Kurt goes home for Christmas, so it's just the two of them.

"The two of them" mostly involves a lot of lying on the couch watching 90s teen dramas on dvd—boxes of Santana's stuff arrived earlier in the week, and the communal dvd collection of the apartment is now ten times larger than it was.

Her dads are in town for Hanukkah, and she's seen them every night since it started. But it's Christmas Eve and she has other plans tonight.

She was helping Kurt force his suitcase closed when she realized Santana hadn't mentioned when she was leaving. Santana didn't even glance in Rachel's direction when she asked. "I'm not," she said, buried under a pile of blankets on their couch watching some cartoon about a vampire and a talking dog. She didn't offer anything else.

Rachel thinks it has something to do with Santana's grandmother, but it might also be Brittany, and she doesn't want to pry. Whatever the reason, Santana's here for Christmas, and Rachel's begged off with her dads, and she has a plan. She just has to convince Santana to leave the apartment. They've officially been roommates for two weeks now, and Rachel wants them to spend time together doing something besides eating and watching tv.

"Ugh, I don't like cinnamon," Santana complains, sitting on the bench beside the tray of cookies Rachel's just finished decorating.

"It's a good thing they're not for you then, isn't it."

"Well that's rude," Santana says, snagging a cookie and biting it in half.

Rachel ignores her. "You should go get dressed."

"Uh, no I shouldn't," Santana replies. "It's like a shvitz in here."

Sometimes their heating is a little dysfunctional, and despite the snow outside the windows are propped open. Tomorrow it might be freezing inside. Rachel's called their landlord about something almost once a week since they moved in, and she's yet to see him come and actually fix anything. She hasn't giving up hope, exactly, but she has pulled out her summer loungewear again.

"Please stop trying to speak Yiddish," Rachel sighs.

"Unless you can't handle all of this," Santana indicates herself, and the pajamas that are more suited to the middle of summer on a tropical island.

"They're just legs, Santana, not instruments of psychological torture. But what I mean is, you should get dressed so we can go out."

Santana snags another cookie before hopping down from the bench. "I'm not going out there. Bitches be crazy this week," she says, tossing her arm like the boys Rachel sees riding skateboards in Union Square sometimes.

"Not even if it involves scantily-dressed women dancing?" Rachel asks coyly. Santana's in a good mood today, and she's going to take advantage of it.

Santana pauses midway back to the couch. "Are you taking me to see strippers?" she asks, and Rachel can't tell if she's excited or scared.

…

"Okay, seriously, I hate you right now. Why are you making me go out in this weather when it's like the Bahamas at home?" Santana kicks at a beam on the subway platform, then squints to make sure she didn't leave a mark on her boots. "This is so unnecessary. I don't care about strippers."

"Christmas cheer is never unnecessary," Rachel replies, looping her arm through Santana's and pulling her onto the train that's just arrived. "And you've never been to the Bahamas."

"You're the worst Jew ever," Santana mutters, and Rachel snickers when she shrinks under the glare of half the people on the train.

…

"This is not strippers."

Rachel has harbored a secret desire to be a Rockette since she was seven. Not as a career, but she always thought it would be a fun step in her path to Broadway superstardom. She's not going to tell Santana this, because even Rachel can see the short jokes that would come from that. But she thinks Santana will appreciate the experience, so she's multi-tasking entertaining her and reliving a childhood dream.

"I never said it was," Rachel says, handing the usher their tickets.

"Can we agree you lied when you said scantily dressed? Because, at best, this only meets the 1920s definition of scantily dressed."

"Are you going to be like this all night?" Rachel asks when they reach their seats.

"Maybe," Santana says, looking around. "Depends on how much up-skirt action we get from this angle."

"Please, you'd probably pass out if you saw anything more than spanks."

Santana turns in her seat to face her. "I don't pass out when  _you_  walk around the house half dressed."

"That's different," Rachel says, ignoring Santana in favor of looking through the program.

"Only if you're telling me you're some kind of robot," Santana says, and then offers to get them drinks.

…

Whoever serves Santana doesn't card her, and an hour and a half of dancing girls and Grey Goose doubles later, they're standing on the street. Rachel's a little giddy from the alcohol, but Santana's got some kind of overstimulated buzz going on that's making Rachel laugh.

"Come on," she says, and pulls them around the corner.

Santana pulls them to a stop when she realizes where Rachel's leading them. "This isn't some Home Alone recreation, we are not going to gawk at the tree like a bunch of tourists."

"Who said anything about the tree? There's a million things in this direction."

Even as they continue to walk, the streets relatively empty, Santana points at her, "I know you, Rachel Berry. Of course we're going to see the tree."

"Okay, we are," she concedes.

"Ha!"

Rachel glances at Santana sideways. "But we could also be going to engage in some drunken ice skating."

"Okay, hold up. Even I think that's dangerous!"

…

"You just have to let go," Rachel says for the seventeenth time.

"Are you, like, drugging me in my sleep?" Santana asks, still not letting go of the rail. "Because that's pretty much the only explanation for how you got me to do this."

The tree wasn't that exciting to look at after about ten seconds, but if she'd known it would be this hard to get Santana to move more than a foot away from the entrance to the ice rink, she might have skipped this part, too.

"Come on, please, just let go," she says, making one last try. "I promise, I'm a very good skater, and I won't let you fall."

Santana must still be a tiny bit drunk, because she actually lets go, throwing her arms from the railing to Rachel.

It would have been nice if she'd given Rachel some warning.

"Oh my  _god!_ " Santana screams, rolling to the side of Rachel. "What kind of promise keeper are you?"

She would defend herself, but she's currently having difficulty breathing. For such a thin girl, Santana is apparently very heavy.

"Rachel!" Santana's voice cuts through her focus on the flags waving in the breeze overhead.

"Ow," she says, wheezing only a tiny bit. Oh, that's going to hurt tomorrow. Even through her coat she can feel the ice underneath her back.

"Are you okay?" Santana's managed to get up on her knees, and she's leaning over Rachel. It feels like a scene in a movie, and Rachel gets distracted wondering who would play her in the movie about her life.

She hopes it's someone who can sing, and isn't cast just because they share similar facial features.

"Rachel!"

"Yes, sorry, I'm okay. Just," she shifts a bit, trying to sit up. "Okay, you're going to have to help me, I'm broken."

"Wait, wait," Santana holds her down, "did you hit your head?"

Rachel blinks at the sky, assessing. "No. Just my everything else."

"Okay," Santana says, relieved. Then she turns and scans the people around them. "Hey you, with the muscles! Come help my friend and she'll let you feel her up while you do!"

"Santana!"

The guy Santana waves over turns out to be a very polite young man from Texas, and he isn't even the slightest bit handsy, or offended when she declines joining him and his friends for some Christmas drinks at TGIFridays.

"Yeah, like we'd go to TGIFridays," Santana scoffs as they unlace their skates.

Rachel nods, even though she doesn't agree.

It isn't the place Rachel objects to, it's the way they ignored Santana. They didn't even invite her to come along, though she was clearly here with Rachel. Maybe they could tell she's gay and didn't want to waste their time, or maybe something worse. She wants to give them the benefit of the doubt, though, which leaves her with they just have bad taste.

"Yeah, that wasn't going to happen." She stands in her socks, waiting for Santana so they can collect their shoes, when she realizes something and grabs at her pockets. "My phone!"

There's a frantic moment when she can't find it, patting herself down, until Santana plucks it from the breast pocket of her coat.

"Oh thank god," she sighs, clutching it, then clicking it on to make sure it isn't damaged. "Oh hey," she says, turning the phone around to show Santana the time. 12:01. "Merry Christmas."

Santana's balanced on one foot, adjusting her sock—knee-high in red and green—but her foot drops and she looks around at the people moving through the Plaza and up at the tree. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold and her scarf is messing up her hair, but she looks like she's actually comfortable in the moment—  at least as much as Rachel's ever seen her be.

"Yeah," Santana says softly, and then without being weird about it at all, pulls Rachel into a hug. "Merry Christmas."

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to the homies who have been holding my hand with this one. it's very much appreciated.
> 
> (also, fair warning, part 3 isn't as close to done as part 2 was when 1 was posted, so there might be a couple more days between parts.)

The door slamming startles Rachel out of sleep, and she blinks at the ceiling, listening as someone moves around the apartment. It's still light outside, but she has two weeks of winter break left, and if storing up sleep is something people can do, she's going to try her best. Besides, her parents gifted her with some amazing new sheets for Hanukkah, and she's making the most of them.

Whoever it is, banging about in the kitchen, they sound angry, and she kicks off the covers and pulls on a pair of sweats. She pokes her head between the sheets to find Santana angrily stabbing some tuna with a fork.

Santana's completely obsessed with canned tuna, and Kurt made a joke about it that she didn't get until Santana explained, and then she helped Santana chase him around the apartment and hold him down while Santana covered his face in lipstick. He deserved it, for being so disgusting. New York has been a bad influence on him.

She hovers in the gap for a moment, watching Santana scrape at the edges of the tin. "Are you okay?"

Santana jumps, turning to glare at Rachel. "God, lurk much? And I'm fine," she snaps, then shoves the fork into her mouth. "Just peachy."

"Um, okay," Rachel says uncertainly.

Sometimes she still doesn't know how to talk to Santana, and only part of that is out of a lingering fear that Santana actually has a Rachel voodoo doll like she says she does. It's just hard to tell with Santana if she wants you to leave her alone or make a big fuss.

She's about to retreat back to her room when Santana slams the container in her hand down on the bench.

"I went on an audition," Santana says flatly.

"Oh my god, why didn't you say so?" Rachel says, coming over to the kitchen. "Was it amazing? What was it for? Did they tear you to shreds? I bet they tore you to shreds."

"This—" Santana waves her hand at Rachel, "—is the answer to your first question." She tosses her fork into the sink and storms off in the direction of her room.

"Wait," Rachel cries, and grabs Santana's arm. "Wait. I'm sorry, okay. I'm sorry." She takes a breath, indicating she's calmed down—even if a first audition is something to be excited about! "Tell me how it went."

"Terribly," Santana sniffs. She pulls her arm from Rachel's grip and moves to sit on the couch, angrily tossing a cushion aside.

"What happened?" She perches beside Santana, biting her lip to reign in any further questions. It was obviously a disaster, but those make for some of the best theater stories. Maybe one day she'll tell this story in an interview, when people ask her about her equally famous, and only slightly less talented, former roommate.

"Nothing!" Santana huffs. "That's the problem. I got up there, sang like three lines, and that was it. That was it!"

"That's all?" Rachel's face pulls into a confused frown. "What else were you expecting?"

"I--" Santana stammers, "I don't know! Some kind of feedback?"

"In the first round? Sweetie, that's not how auditions work."

Santana sighs, and Rachel feels bad for her. She has no idea what she's doing, but Rachel doesn't think Santana would welcome being told that. "I'm sure you were fine, and they were just looking for something different."

"Yeah, maybe," Santana glowers. "Whatever. I don't want to talk about it."

…

"This show is dumb," Rachel pouts. She and Santana thumb wrestled for what they would watch, and Santana  _cheated_ so now they're watching old  _Law & Order SVU_ episodes.

Santana pauses, hand full of popcorn halfway to her mouth. "If you say that one more time, I'm going to swap all your tea leaves around in their containers."

"You wouldn't!" Rachel gasps. "You know how important tea is to my vocal care routine. Something you should be implementing, I might add."

Santana scoops up another handful of popcorn, tossing a couple of pieces at Rachel. "Can you  _please_  stop with that, you're not my mother."

"Thank god," Rachel rolls her eyes, even as she picks up the pieces of popcorn before they get lost in the blankets they're sharing. "And I'll stop if you tell me why we're watching this. I appreciate a local New York production as much as anyone, and as the last remaining  _Law & Order_I hope it survives long enough for me to land a guest role, but this is so dated, and not in a classic way."

Santana replies around a mouthful of popcorn, Rachel only catching something about glasses, and possibly 'objection, your honor', before Santana's distracted by something happening on screen.

"Wait a second," Rachel cries, "we're watching this so you can perv on that district attorney lady?"

" _Assistant_  District Attorney," Santana mumbles, "and  _no_ , not for that!"

"Yes it is!" Rachel laughs, and it only increases when Santana actually goes so far as to toss her hair, crossing her arms as she turns back towards the tv.

"Is not," Santana grumps, her foot nudging against Rachel's shin beneath the blankets.

"Is, too!" Rachel tosses back, toeing Santana's leg in return.

Santana lazily pushes her foot against Rachel's leg. "Stop it!"

"You stop it first," Rachel says, trying to get a better angle to actually kick at Santana's leg. "You started it!"

"And now I'm finishing it," Santana replies, reaching under the blanket and grabbing at Rachel's foot.

"No!" she squeals, kicking away as Santana tries to get a hold of her foot. She's incredibly ticklish and Santana can't discover that, although she may have just given herself away with her reaction.

Thankfully, she's saved by the sound of a key in the lock, followed by Kurt's head poking around the door.

"Is someone being murdered?"

"No," Santana says, smug grin in place. "But apparently someone is ticklish."

"Oh, I could have told you that," Kurt says, dragging his suitcase inside. "Finn used to— I mean...."

There's an awkward moment where Kurt tries to look fascinated by the inside of his carry bag.

"How was Finn, anyway?" Rachel asks after a moment. She doesn't want it to be awkward that Kurt's basically her ex's brother. Not that wanting it will make it that way; if that were true she'd have been plucked from her first class at NYADA to star in a revival of Funny Girl, and obviously that didn't happen.

"He's okay," Kurt says, but he says it in a way that Rachel knows he's lying. Finn's either perfectly fine or he's completely miserable, and she thinks it shows some personal growth that she hopes it's the first.

She doesn't have anything else to say to that, so she turns back to Santana. "So explain to me what's going on with this  _Assistant_  District Attorney and Olivia."

…

…

Their waitress has just set down their grilled cheese -- with bacon for Santana, vegan cheese for Rachel, and god she loves New York -- when Santana clears her throat.

"I enrolled in some singing lessons."

"Oh, that's fantastic," Rachel replies, genuinely pleased. She's been telling Santana she should, but she didn't think she was getting anywhere. Apparently Santana does listen to her occasionally.

"I might have lied a tiny bit on my application," Santana continues. "So you're gonna have to teach me actual shit about breath control."

She opens her mouth to snap that Santana could have learnt that sort of thing a million times over by now. But she swallows it down, telling herself that it doesn't matter that she's been trying for three years to teach Santana exactly that, it only matters that she's finally willing to learn.

"Okay," she says, "But my lessons aren't free."

"Are you serious?" Santana says, outraged, around a mouthful of food.

"My price is," she draws the word out, "you have to come to a show with me. Once a week until you start your actual lessons."

She's mostly been going alone. Kurt comes with her when he can swing the money and the time, and sometimes a group of people from school go together, and that's fine, but it would be nice to have someone come along regularly. And Santana needs the exposure; she's woefully unschooled in musical theater for someone who apparently wants to work in it. She's never even watched the Tony Awards.

"That—" Santana starts, but nothing follows. She frowns, taking another bite of her grilled cheese and swallowing it before she says anything else. "Deal."

_Of course it's a deal_ , Rachel thinks,  _who would say no to theater once a week?_

"Okay, let's make like Linda Lovelace and blow," Santana says as she counts out an exact tip and then drops an extra two dollars on top. "I gotta stop at the bodega and buy scandalous things that Kurt will not approve of."

…

…

"Pick a song already!" Rachel yells, not letting the drink straw in her mouth get in the way of letting Kurt know exactly how displeased she is. "Your final audition is on Monday!"

"I know," comes Kurt's reply from somewhere on the other side of the apartment.

"Do you really? Because you haven't done anything, and it's three days away."

There's no reply, and then Kurt appears in her doorway.

"You're not going to get in if you leave it to the last minute," she sighs, curling up on her side. "And then I'll be there all alone forever."

"Um," Kurt bites at his lip, and just like that she knows what he's about to say.

"No!" she cries, sitting up and almost spilling her drink. "You can't!"

"I'm sorry," Kurt says, rushing over to the bed. "I just— I don't want that anymore. I love my job at Vogue, and Isabelle thinks I have a real talent. I'd be crazy to blow this opportunity!"

"But we were supposed to do this together!" she says, and Kurt takes her glass to put down somewhere as she feels her eyes start to burn.

_But we have a plan!_  And it's been rewritten and reworked so many times now it barely even looks like the same piece of paper they started on, and maybe it's better, this new version of whatever it is they're doing, but what if they move too far away from the plan and it all falls to pieces?

She scrambles onto her knees, her hands tight around Kurt's arms. "Why can't you do both?" she asks, blinking furiously. "That was your plan, wasn't it? You should do both! You don't want to close any options off to yourself so quickly!"

This is insane. Kurt's just being impulsive, and she has to stop him before he throws everything away. Otherwise he's going to ruin everything; why can't he see that?

"But I don't want to," Kurt says, extricating himself from Rachel's grip to pull her into a hug. "And if I change my mind, NYADA will always be there. Mandy Patinkin was 28 when he won his first Tony, and that's very young."

"But we were supposed to do this together," she chokes out, Kurt's shirt growing damp from her tears.

"I know. But how about we make this a little less about you right now, and a little more about me, sweetie," Kurt says, not without affection.

She sniffles into his chest, trying not to think about the last time Kurt wasn't going to NYADA. She's going to have to tell her therapist about this. "Sorry," she says, wiping at her eyes. "I think you're going to make a wonderful designer."

"Thank you," Kurt says, twisting a lock of her hair between his fingers. "And you'll be fine without me."

"No I won't," she pouts, watching him play with her hair.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but you've been doing this alone for a whole semester already. And you've been more than fine."

…

"I told you!" Santana cackles, and Rachel throws the piece of apple in her hand at Santana before storming out of the apartment.

…

It's still cold outside, and even though she's mad—and it's not really at Santana, but she can't be mad at Kurt for following his heart, so Santana it is—she only goes to the corner of the block and back.

If you rattle the door to their building hard enough, it opens without a key, and as she's unsuccessfully trying to do so, it opens from the inside and she stumbles forward, catching herself on the person in front of her.

"You forgot your coat," Santana says, standing there in her pajamas and uggs, her own coat tossed on over the top. She holds out Rachel's coat, the long black one, not the short grey one, and Rachel grasps it without thinking.

"Thanks." She doesn't put it on, though, instead pushes them both back through the door into the little foyer.

Rachel's about to head up the stairs, but Santana's voice stops her. "I'm sorry."

"Really? Why?"

Santana fidgets with the sleeve of her coat, refusing to meet Rachel's eyes, and she rolls her own, because _exactly_. Santana doesn't know when to  _stop_ , doesn't have any idea how—

"I'm sorry I made light of your feelings," she says, face turning up to look at Rachel. "I didn't mean to, really. It's just—" She shrugs, eyes darting around the small space. "Look, not to be all Doctor Phil levels of self-awareness, but sometimes I say the opposite of what I mean."

Rachel glares, biting her tongue.

"What I meant was I think it sucks your plans with Kurt are going down the crapper because he wants to be Coco Chanel instead of Zsa Zsa Gabor."

Somewhere in there Santana means well; it may have even been sweet. It doesn't mean she's ready to stop being angry, but she can save that for later. It's not really Santana she's angry at, after all.

"I wish I had a Santana to Human dictionary," she sighs, sitting down on the stairs.

Santana leans against the banister, staring into the middle distance for a moment. "You should ask Brittany. I think she had one."

They don't talk about Brittany. They don't talk about Blaine or Finn, really, either, but not as much as they don't talk about Brittany. She can't really imagine what it must be like to break up with someone because you love them too much, but she thinks Santana bringing her up is a good sign, though she's got no idea of what.

"Do you think she'd let me borrow it?" Rachel asks with a forced lightness, getting to her feet and heading up the stairs.

"Probably," Santana replies, following behind. "Then again, she spoke Santana and I ended up falling in love with her. Might want to rethink that."

"I'll be very careful," Rachel says dryly, and lets them back into the apartment.

…

…

"What's wrong with you? Stop touching me." Santana slaps Rachel's hands away from her.

Rachel dodges her, covering Santana's mouth with her hand. "Breathe," she demands, ignoring Santana's gloss-wet lips against her palm, because she thinks she's onto something.

They've been working on Santana's breathing for three weeks—only her breathing; Santana refuses to sing for her—and her lessons start on Monday. They've seen  _Chicago_  because Santana had never seen it on stage and that had to be rectified immediately, some avant garde... something that neither of them liked, and they're going to see  _Once_  on Wednesday night.

Santana glares but inhales through her nose, exhales, and inhales again. Rachel can't believe it's taken her this long to work out Santana's breathing problem.

"Oh my god, this is why you snore!"

Santana jerks her head away, her face doing that scrunchy thing that's not at all as intimidating as Santana seems to think it is. "I do not snore!"

Rachel bites at her lips, desperately trying not to laugh at Santana's indignation, because she knows she's right. Santana does snore, quietly, all night long. She and Kurt stood in the living area silently "oh my god!"-ing at each other when it first started. Her daddy does it, too, for the exact same reason, at the exact same time of year.

"Okay,  _if_  I snored,  _which I don't_ ," Santana says, glaring at Rachel, "what's the reason?"

Rachel swallows down her laughter. "I'm pretty sure you have allergies."

"I do not! Allergies are for— nerds!"

Rachel pats Santana's arm, a comforting look fighting with a smirk. "Sweetie, you were in glee club. You're trying to break into musical theater—"

"Don't even finish that thought," Santana growls, and Rachel laughs until she has to sit down.

…

"I am officially a slave to the wage!" Santana's voice shouts as she slams the front door. "Working for the man! A brick in the— Is anyone even home?"

"Am I allowed to speak now, or are you not finished yet?" Rachel asks, coming out of her bedroom.

"Guess who got a job!"

Her immediate response is swallowed down because  _how_  could Santana have been cast in anything before her. "That's fantastic! What's the show?" she asks instead, putting on her best face.

"Oh please, as if you think I got cast in anything," Santana scoffs, and Rachel freezes. "As if  _I_  think I got cast in anything, but shame on you for using your fake face on me."

"Sorry, I—"

"Shut up and let me tell you about how I, Santana Lopez, am the newest member of the Starbucks family of employees," she says, pulling out a bright green apron from her purse and twirling it around.

Rachel really doesn't mean to laugh, but the idea is— "Are you serious?"

"Yep!" Santana replies chirpily. It's freaking Rachel out.

She stammers for something to say until Santana tosses the apron at her. "Oh my god, you idiot, of course this is the shittiest thing ever,  _Jesus_. But I don't want to just waste all my mom's money before I even work out what I want to do, exactly."

"Don't scare me like that," Rachel says faintly, tossing the apron back at Santana. "It was like you'd been taken over by a pod person with no personality."

"Ha!" Santana laughs, "you like that I hate everything!"

"That's not what I meant," Rachel huffs, but it's too late, and Santana continues to laugh obnoxiously as she heads into her bedroom.

"You like it when I'm a cranky bitch!" she singsongs, even as she disappears through the sheets.

…

Rachel's lying on her bed, reading over some sheet music for her classes that start after the weekend when Santana appears in her doorway.

"Hey," Santana says, tugging at the sheet hanging beside her, "I got us tickets for  _Porgy and Bess_  next week."

"Oh," Rachel sits up. "But I'm done teaching you."

"I know," Santana shrugs. "It's like a thank you, or something."

"'Like a thank you, or something'," Rachel laughs, shuffling to the edge of the bed. "Can it just  _be_  a thank you?"

Santana shrugs again. "I guess."

"Well, you're welcome, I guess," she teases, and she can see the smile Santana's fighting. She can't believe she ever thought Santana was scary, when she's about as threatening as a Care Bear.

…

Santana isn't there when Rachel gets home from class, and she stares at her wardrobe trying to decide what to wear.

It's a Friday night; shouldn't she dress up for going out on a Friday night?

She's not sure, but it's the theater, so she pulls on this pantsuit she bought at a sample sale she and Kurt went to the week before—they're on trend, thank you, don't be rude—and she's twisting her hair up into a knot when Santana gets in.

"Hey, you ready?" she asks, hovering in Rachel's doorway. "Nice, by the way," she adds, nodding at Rachel's clothes.

"Just about," she replies. "You?"

"I was going to change," Santana glances at herself, indicating the ratty old jeans she wore to class that day. She heads in the direction of the bathroom, calling out, "These aren't exactly date night clothes," before the door slams.

She spends an extra moment on her makeup since they're apparently going all out this evening.

...

"We should have seen this first, is all I'm saying," Santana says, waiting for Rachel to go through the apartment door.

They went to Shake Shack with all the tourists after the show, and the wait for a table was worth it, but now Rachel's full of milkshake and fries and she wants to lie down and not think about how the drink wasn't vegan. Santana, on the other hand, ate a double something or other, and looks like she could climb the Empire State Building without breaking a sweat. Not that Rachel's ever actually been there.

She drops her purse on the table, stripping off her scarf and coat. "Well you've seen it now, so I don't know what you're complaining about."

"I'm not complaining, I just think you need to learn to sell people on things a little better. We could have seen this weeks ago. Just think how much more willing I'd have been if that's what I'd thought to expect every week."

Rachel's skepticism twists her face. "I've never seen you willing to do anything."

Santana laughs loudly at that. "Oh, you have no idea what I'd be willing to do with the right motivation," she says, winking at Rachel before disappearing into her corner of the apartment.

She's trying to think of a rebuttal when Kurt makes his presence known. "Good show?"

"Yeah," she tosses over her shoulder, following after Santana, because what does she even mean by that?

…

…

Her fall schedule is only a little different from last semester—no more general dance, thank  _god_ —but she gets home late on Thursday nights, and she really doesn't appreciate it. The subway is ridiculously busy at that hour and she just wants to get home without being groped.

The door slams with the force of her annoyance, and when she turns around Santana's frantically swiping at her face and slapping at the remote.

"Are you crying?" Rachel asks before she has a chance to censor herself.

"No," Santana says immediately, and then obviously realizing she's fooling no one, drags her sleeve across her face, gesturing at the tv with her other hand. "Shut up, you'd cry at this, too."

Rachel heads for the refrigerator, digging past the containers of Kurt's pasta to find a bottle of Snapple. "What are you watching?"

" _If These Walls Could Talk_ ," Santana calls over the back of the couch. "The gay one, not the one about abortion."

"I've never seen it," Rachel says, coming into the living area. The tv is paused on Vanessa Redgraves' face, and she frowns at it as she sits at the other end of the couch. "How far in are you?"

"I think this is the end of the first story, but there's two more." Santana shifts her legs around to look at Rachel. "I can go back to the start if you like?"

"But it made you cry," Rachel says with a smile. "We wouldn't want to put you through that again."

Santana shrugs, burying her hands inside her hoodie. "It's fine."

"Why are you watching this, anyway, if it's making you cry?"

"Because it's about lesbians, and, I don't know," Santana sighs. "I should know this history. It's like, they're my people, or something."

Rachel swallows another mouthful of her drink, twisting the cap back into place as she watches the tv drop into screensaver mode. "I don't really— I mean, my dad is Jewish, and so is Shelby. But daddy is African-American, and it's always been something I couldn't share with him, not really. I never really thought of it in reverse, that maybe dad and I being Jewish was something he couldn't be a part of, because we always had each other. I can't really imagine having this thing that makes you different from both of your parents."

"Rachel, your dads are gay," Santana says around a laugh. "You're  _not_."

"Oh," she blinks. "That's—I never thought of that." She's never really thought about that at all.

"How do you see past the end of your nose?" Santana snickers, adding, "Sorry!" before she cracks into laughter, and Rachel can't help but join in.

"Shut up and start the movie over. I don't care if it makes you cry again."

…

…

"You're stretching wrong."

Auditions for the semester productions begin in three days, so she's rehearsing at home in what little space there is to do so. Or she's trying to, but apparently she's going to be heckled while she does it.

"I am not."

"Who are you going to believe," Santana says, moving to stand in front of where Rachel's laid out on the rug, "yourself, or a three-time national cheerleading champion?"

Even though it's annoying, Rachel grins up at Santana's cocky face. It's nice to see, because it's been so rare since her arrival.

"Okay, fine," Rachel says with a grin, "what am I doing wrong?"

Santana's got her folded in half on the floor, leaning against her back in a way that makes Rachel whimper just a tiny bit, when Kurt comes through the door.

"Um, am I interrupting anything?" he asks, giving them a strange look.

"No," Santana snaps, moving off Rachel's back.

"Don't be silly, Kurt." she dismisses. "Come back here," she directs at Santana.

Santana comes, even as she glares at Kurt, who's still looking at them like he walked in on them filming porn. Rachel rolls her eyes at him, because he's being ridiculous, and he leaves them alone.

…

…

She gets a part in her studio's production. It's not one of the  _big_  productions—freshman aren't allowed in those—but it's still a big deal to be cast freshman year in something that isn't entirely a student-run production. She has three lines, which means even though she's in the chorus she gets an individual credit, too.

After she comes home and screams with excitement for a while, and then freaks out for a while, Kurt and Santana frogmarch her around to the gross little bar that doesn't card them and make her drink tequila until she nearly pukes.

"To Rachel!" Kurt toasts, and it feels like only a minute later that she's slumped against Santana's side watching Kurt clink his glass against Santana's. She thought they had been doing tequila, but their drinks look tall and fruity and they smell like purple.

"I hate you guys," she slurs as they wander home, trying to ignore the way her entire mouth tastes like burning.

"Tequila is  _nasty_ ," Santana snickers, steering Rachel back towards the middle of the sidewalk. "Why'd you let us buy it for you if you don't like it?"

"I thought we were doing a thing."

"There is no  _thing_  that involves me and tequila," Kurt says. "Silly Rachel."

"I miss you," she says, her hand reaching out to paw at Kurt. "Stop being so busy all the time."

Kurt takes her free arm, hooking it around his own. "We spent four hours getting facials the other day, Rachel."

"I know," she sighs. "It's not like it used to be though."

When she wakes up in the morning, there's a bucket beside her bed that she's immediately grateful for. Not that she has any recollection of how she got to her bed.

…

"I hate you guys," she says, falling across the foot of Santana's bed a couple of hours later.

"Such gratitude for the people who carted your drunk ass home last night, put you in bed,  _and_  got you a puke recepticle."

Rachel ignores her, bunches up some of the comforter to rest her head on and closes her eyes for a moment.

"Where is Kurt, anyway?"

"The gym."

"Okay."

The apartment's silent except for the sound of pages turning. She looks up to where Santana is propped against the headboard. "What are you doing?"

"Studying," Santana replies distractedly.

"What for?" Rachel mumbles, head dropping back to its resting spot.

"Singing lessons."

"I don't believe you go to them," Rachel says, feeling herself dropping off. "I've never heard you practice."

She doesn't remember Santana's answer.

…

…

"Hold up, Veganette Peters--"

"Nice one," Rachel snorts.

"--me first. You can spend five thousand hours basting your skin like a turkey when I'm done."

"Skin care is very important, why don't you understand that?" Rachel splutters. "But also not the point, I got here first!"

"Well I have a date, so you can just sit your pretty little butt down and wait. Hos before—oh, that doesn't work." Santana wanders into the bathroom, muttering about how there really should be some gender neutral friends before lovers sayings for her to mess around with, and how Liz Lemon is totally right that the word lover is gross, and—

"Excuse me, but you're not the only one with a date tonight," Rachel says, moving Santana out of the way of her spot in front of the mirror.

"Oh,  _please_  tell me this isn't with that Brody guy. Rachel, he sucks!"

"It's not with Brody," she sighs, digging through her drawer in the vanity. "His name is Ben, and he's in my ballet class."

"Well he doesn't sound gay at all," Santana says sarcastically.

"And who exactly are you going out with?" Rachel asks, eyebrow raised. "Hmmm?"

"No one you know," Santana mutters, nudging Rachel so she can get to her own drawer.

But Rachel isn't fooled; she knows Santana's bullshit voice -- though it's usually reserved for when all the ice cream magically goes missing. "Oh my god, are you going out with that girl? Maria? From the party?"

"No."

"Yes it is!" Rachel shouts, pointing at Santana as she laughs. "Oh my god, you're going on a date with your one night stand. That's so cute!"

"Fuck off!" Santana snaps, tossing her mascara on the bench and shoving past Rachel.

"Shit," Rachel says under her breath, and then drops her own mascara to rush after Santana. "I'm— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

Santana turns on her, halfway across the living area. "Yes, you did, you exactly meant to make fun of me!"

"Okay, I did," Rachel admits, edging across the floor. "But only in fun. There's nothing wrong with going on a date with someone you already—"

"Yeah,  _okay_."

"I'm just saying. It's nice. You must like her, which is, you know, nice," Rachel finishes with a shrug. She feels like she barely has a hold on this situation, out of nowhere, and she just wants to rein it back in before they start screaming at each other—something they've barely done since Santana's been living there, except about who uses all the hot water. (It's Kurt.)

She really needs to learn that Santana can dish it out but she absolutely cannot take it.

"So," she says when the silence has stretched on for too long. "This is the first girl you've dated since Brittany?" Santana nods, refusing to look at her. "Wow."

"Yeah," Santana sighs, leaning against the back of the couch between them.

"Are you taking her somewhere nice?" she asks tentatively.

Santana's fingers twist together. "She's taking me somewhere. I'm meeting her on 14th Street."

"You should take her something. Flowers. Or a single flower, since you're meeting up on the way."

"Yeah?"

"Girls like that," Rachel shrugs. "I've been on a few first dates."

…

And she'll probably go on a few more, because the evening is a total flop.

She's toeing her shoes off by the door, having awkwardly said goodnight to her date on the other side of it, when the light over the dining table switches on.

"Hey," Santana says. "You're home early."

"So are you," Rachel points out, wandering over. Santana sitting alone in the dark can't mean anything good, but she doesn't look upset.

"Touche," Santana replies, pulling the spoon from her mouth to point it at Rachel. The carton of ice cream in front of her is beaded with water.

Rachel sits, sagging against the wood with a sigh.

"Want some?" Santana asks, poking the ice cream with her spoon.

"If I say no will there be any left tomorrow?"

"Nope," Santana says easily, and hands over her spoon when Rachel holds out her hand for it.

…

…

Performing for a truly appreciative crowd is exactly as thrilling as she always imagined it would be.

She doesn't actually like  _On The Town_  all that much, but it was good enough for Bernadette Peters and so it's good enough for her. And none of that matters as she stands on stage opening night, the audience on their feet applauding. She imagines this is what doing drugs is like, because even though she's exhausted she wants to do it all over again immediately.

Her parents are in the crowd somewhere, as are Kurt and Santana, and as she's scrubbing off her makeup it occurs to her to wonder what they could possibly have talked about. Besides Rachel herself, obviously.

They're waiting for her outside, and her dad is as excited as she was the day she got the role, picking her up and spinning her around right there on the sidewalk in front of her classmates and friends.

"Baby, you were fantastic!" Hiram says loudly, and even as she blushes she can't help but beam.

She'd been so mad at her parents last summer, for their part in Finn's "noble gesture". When she'd arrived in New York her upset had hardened into fury, and she didn't speak to them for days, even as they dragged her around Manhattan and Brooklyn.

It all came to an appropriately dramatic climax when Finn's voicemail stopped accepting new messages, and she had no choice but to vent her emotions at the next available target.

It was only then that she learned they'd tried to talk Finn out of the way he chose to go about things, and her daddy had been particularly emphatic in his desire to wring Finn's neck—a thought that brings her a certain amount of pleasure—so she couldn't hold it against them forever.

They just want the best for her, and she wants to give them the best in return, and seeing her daddy stand next to Kurt and Santana, smiling as hard as he is, she thinks she might have managed to do just that.

"I'm so glad you both could be here," she sighs, clutching at Hiram's arm. "Can we go somewhere? You're leaving tomorrow, right, I want to see you before you leave again."

"You'll see us tomorrow, baby," Leroy says, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "I think you have a cast party to attend now."

"But--"

"Come on, Rachel," Leroy says, "don't mess with tradition. We'll see you tomorrow for breakfast at Michael's, and we'll tell you all about how you blew the audience away."

"If it would be breaking tradition, then I guess I have no choice," she sighs dramatically, but she is a little disappointed not to be spending time with them, even as Kurt drags her in the direction of the subway entrance to join her castmates waiting for her.

…

The thing about a performing arts school is that  _everyone_  wants a turn in the spotlight.

Kurt's talking to the same guy he ends up talking to at every NYADA party he and Santana have been to with Rachel, and Santana's being harassed by Michaela, which is something she might have to put a stop to. She watches out of the corner of her eye, but for the moment she's just going to wait for her turn on stage with a drink at the bar.

She's pacing herself, because there's still another performance the following night, but she's had something blue and tingly, and she's glad they made her come.

Her moment alone doesn't last long, though—a lot of her friends are in the cast as well, and some of them drag her out onto the dance floor, but when her name is called she pushes through the crowd back towards the bar where Santana's still with Michaela and her friends.

"Come on!" she shouts over the music. "You're singing with me!"

"Uh, no I'm not," Santana mouths, but Rachel's not taking no for an answer, and pulls at Santana's arm until she either comes along or lets Rachel pull her to the floor. Even as Santana trudges behind her, she shouts, "I still have that voodoo doll!"

"You should get Kurt to make it a new outfit," Rachel laughs, leaning down from the steps she's reached so Santana can hear her. "He could probably even make my shredded sweater."

Santana's eyes are about to roll out of her head, but she steps up on stage after Rachel and grabs one of the sequined covered microphones.

The music starts up, a song she picked when she put her name on the list, and she turns to where Santana's alternating between glaring at her and looking at the crowd with some concern.

"You take Donna's part!" Rachel calls, turning to the front of the stage for Barbra's first line of the song and ignoring Santana's sarcastically incredulous, "Gosh,  _really_?"

Rachel's worried she's going to be left without a duet partner as Santana continues to stand there frowning, but when it reaches her line, she steps up next to Rachel, hitting her cue. Rachel can't stop her arm from wrapping around Santana's, pulling her closer so they can step to the front of the stage together.

By the end of the eight minutes Santana's gamely following Rachel's lead in some very genre-appropriate choreography, and Rachel wonders if she should get Santana a karaoke machine for home.

…

They still have six more stops until Montrose Avenue, and Rachel desperately wants her bed, but Santana's almost asleep beside her so she keeps her eyes open, just in case.

"That was fun," Santana mumbles. "Even if Maria was there, and it was awkward. Thanks for saving me by the way, even if it was to sing that horrible song"

"I didn't realize I did." Rachel smiles sleepily and chooses to ignore Santana's slighting of a Barbra classic. "But I'm always happy to help out a damsel in post-date awkwardness."

"Nuh uh," Santana says, head moving back and forth. "No lesho points if you didn't do it on purpose."

"Lesho?"

"Like lesbro, but for not-bros." They've reached their stop and Santana hauls herself to her feet, waiting for Rachel to do the same. "It's better, trust me."

…

The next morning she scrolls through her Facebook feed while she's still in bed, squinting against the morning light.

There are a bunch of photos from the night before, both of the show and the after party, and she smiles at the pictures of people on stage at Callbacks. There's a whole album, and she's about to close out of it, because she can look at it later, but she spots a familiar neon dress, and she taps at the photo.

They both look ridiculous, arms in classic disco pose, but Santana's smile is blinding. Rachel looks pretty happy, too. She presses 'Like', and the list of people who've also liked it pops up -- Santana's name right at the top.

…

…

"I just want to die, why won't you help," Santana manages to whine, even though her voice is fading quickly.

"I am helping you, just not so you can  _die_. You have a cold for god's sake!"

Under Kurt's careful supervision, she's managed to make soup that is apparently edible. Not that Kurt bothered to help, but he did sit and make sure she didn't set anything on fire again.

"Here," she says, tray balanced on one hand as she fights her way through Santana's 'doorway'. "I made you soup."

"Is it chicken noodle?" Santana asks. Rachel's fairly sure Santana is more pathetic than she herself is while sick, but all she's asked for is soup and one of Rachel's extra blankets, which Rachel was happy to let her use.

"Yes, it's chicken noodle," she says, setting the tray down beside Santana's bed.

Santana's corner of the apartment is interesting, to say the least, and also incredibly messy. Rachel nudges a stack of magazines out of the way so she can fit the tray on the nightstand, and when they fall to the floor it makes absolutely no difference to the state of the room.

"Does it taste good?" Santana asks, struggling to sit up from underneath a quilt and three blankets. Her hair's a mess, and Rachel doesn't understand how she still manages to look so pretty.

"I didn't taste it," Rachel says, handing the bowl over and laying a dish towel across Santana's lap. "The stock isn't vegan."

"Aw, you cooked dead animal for me? You do care!"

"Don't get used to it," Rachel replies, taking the tray and picking her way back across the floor, stepping over a box filled with books.

…

"You okay?" Rachel asks later, head poking through the sheets. Santana's walls are black, unlike her and Kurt's pale blue pinstripes—Kurt's choice, not hers—but it makes the space cozy rather than oppressive.

Santana looks up from the book she has propped open on her knees, glasses perched on the end of her nose—a surprising discovery that Rachel teased Santana about once, and will never, ever do again.

"Yeah," she says quietly, tucking the book away. "Thanks for the soup."

"It was no problem," she says. "Well, the lack of problem was Kurt's doing, but it was my pleasure."

"Thanks anyway," Santana says, sinking back against her pillows. "You're really..."

Rachel steps further into the room. "What?"

"You're a lot nicer than I ever would have guessed," Santana says after a moment, pulling her glasses off. "I mean... I dunno what I mean. You're just really nice, when you don't have to be."

"Oh," Rachel says dumbly, feeling the warmth in her cheeks. "Thank you," she says, ducking her head. There's an awkward silence, and then she continues. "You know, you are, too."

There's no response, and when she looks up, Santana's fallen asleep.

Rachel tiptoes across the messy floor, collecting the empty bowl from beside the bed. She rescues Santana's glasses from the blankets, and the book, too, and as she sets them down on the nightstand she sees it's one of those paperback romances they sell at the drugstore.

She bites at her lip to keep from smiling too hard, but Santana's just so full of unexpected revelations.

…

…

Her alarm won't shut up, and she doesn't recognize the song.

She works out why when she remembers it's Sunday and she never set her alarm; the song is Santana singing. Actually, she listens closer, it's Santana singing in the shower.

The song is old, something bluesy she's embarrassed she doesn't recognize. Santana's giving it everything she could possibly have on a Sunday morning, and she sounds really good, even if she did wake Rachel up.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i've been so anxious to post the damn parts i've pretty much failed at some basic information.
> 
> 1\. this is set post-the break up, in case that wasn't clear.
> 
> 2\. the timeline for this makes no sense, so don't even try. i originally just cheated and set it in 2011-2012, but i'd mixed up the storms that happened in 2011 so really it's just the 11-12 broadway season.
> 
> 3\. the above point only makes sense if you know the original prompt was pezberry and hurricane sandy, which i also failed to mention.
> 
> before these notes get any more ridiculous, here is chapter 3.

Finals officially end at five on a Thursday afternoon, and just like that she's finished a whole year of college. Her last final, theater studies, is ridiculous, and everyone is ready to go a little crazy as they pile out of the exam hall.

"Come on," her dance partner says, grabbing her by the shoulders and steering her towards the subway. "Drinks at my place, then studio party with everyone at Le Bain."

"But I'm tired," she starts to whine, but Jason won't hear it.

"And text your fabulous roommates," he demands, walking her towards the subway. "Mark will be there."

Jason's been her ballet partner all semester, but in the last few weeks they've gone from classmates to actual friends as they banded together to survive the end of Cassandra July's presence in their lives. He's tall and handsome and as gay as a rainbow flag, and Rachel quietly adores him. The first thing he ever said to her was that if anyone ever said she should get a nose job, he'd punch them.

And, of course, he ended up being best friends with the guy in her class that Kurt is basically stalking. Rachel is sort of over being Kurt's social coordinator when it comes to Mark, but she sends both him and Santana a group text, and then ignores the half-hour long back and forth between them about Kurt needing to grow some genitalia.

She thought that kind of thing would at least be above Kurt, but apparently not.

...

Jason's place is amazing, his boyfriend Jonathan is hot, and three drinks in she realizes what the date is.

Or what it should have been.

The world goes fuzzy for a moment, and she can't capture a thought, like it's actually too difficult for her brain to process that if things had gone differently, she'd be Mrs Rachel Hudson right now, celebrating her one year wedding anniversary.

To stop the hysterical laughter that wants to bubble up, she swallows down her drink, accepting the refill Jonathan hands her. What else is she supposed to do, turn to the girl sitting next to her who she shared a barre with in ballet and announce it's her non-wedding anniversary?

Her drink is gone too quickly, but another appears in its place.

The next thing she knows she's on the dance floor of an overheated club mostly being propped up by the people moving around her to the beat. She recognizes most of them, which is good, and the arm wrapped around her hips belongs to Maria, which is confusing, but Kurt's within touching distance so it must be okay, and she relaxes into the beat.

…

She really wants a glass of water, and she's trying to fight her way through the crowded dance floor when a hand wraps around her elbow, and she spins to see who it is, over-estimating and nearly tipping over.

"Santana!" she cries when she sees who it is, grabbing Santana's arm to keep herself upright as Santana places a steadying hand on her waist. "You're here!"

It feels like she hasn't seen Santana in forever, but she's here so that can't be right. She blinks up at Santana, trying to remember.

"I just got here," Santana shouts over the music, shifting her grip on Rachel as they're knocked about by the people dancing beside them. "Are you okay?"

"What?"

Santana leans in to speak into her ear, hands warm through the material of Rachel's top. "I asked if you're okay."

_Am I okay?_  She leans against Santana, wondering.

"I'm not married!" she shouts, pressing her face into Santana's tense shoulder. "You smell like coffee."

"I— I just finished work."

Oh, that makes sense. "So that's why you weren't here!"

"Rachel." Santana pulls back to grab her by the shoulders. "How much have you had to drink?"

"I dunno," she shrugs, then remembers what she was doing. "I want some water now."

Santana looks mad for a moment, and Rachel wonders what she did wrong, but she blinks and the look is gone. "Come on," Santana says, and Rachel lets Santana lead her over to the bar, a glass of water appearing in front of her. "Drink this."

"You're my favorite," Rachel sighs, taking the glass and gulping it down.

"Where's Kurt?" Santana asks when she's done.

"Dancing with Mark, where else?" she scoffs, taking the second glass Santana hands her.

Santana arches onto her toes, even though she's wearing very high heels, stretching to look over the crowd. "Stay here," she yells, taking a step and then turning back. "No, fuck him," she says, digging through her clutch and pulling out her phone.

"Let's go sit outside," Santana says after she puts her phone away, and her fingers thread through Rachel's, leading her through the press of people and up onto the slightly less crowded rooftop.

The cool air makes Rachel's eyes water, and she stands there blinking at the tangle of people across the roof's deck, the half-dressed people in the hot tub.

"I can't even cook," she says out loud, as Santana comes up beside her.

"Come sit down," Santana says, hand at her back.

There wasn't a free lounge anywhere when they stepped outside, and she wonders what she missed, but mostly she's just glad for whatever Santana did, because she really just wants to sit down for a moment.

"I'm supposed to be married," she says after a while.

Santana's feet rock back and forth where they're stretched out in front of them. "Do you want to be married?"

The people in the hot tub are getting less and less half-dressed, and Rachel sits there, not looking away. Would she have learnt to cook by now, if things had been different? Would she have taken some classes in Dayton, and learnt how to salsa as well as she can now? Would Finn be sitting here with her, at a rooftop bar with a hot tub full of naked people?

It's not even difficult to imagine the answer to any of that.

 "No." She shakes her head. "I don't think I do."

"Then why are you upset?" Santana asks, shifting next to her to look at her. There's a breeze that keeps catching Rachel's hair, and Santana's finger hooks around the loose strand, tucking it behind Rachel's ear.

"I'm not upset," she says, and realizes it's the truth. "I think I'm relieved."

"And you're drunk because you're relieved," Santana says, falling back against the lounge to rest on her elbows.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Rachel lies back, too, hair cushioning her head. They're right by the river, high up on the tallest building for blocks. Even though they can't exactly see the stars, it feels like they're hovering above everything, and it's possible she drifts off for a moment.

She feels the lounge move next to her, Santana saying she'll just be over there for a moment, wherever there is, and she thinks she hears her yelling at someone, but then she's back, pulling Rachel's arm.

"Time to go," Santana says, and Rachel just nods, because it probably is.

…

...

"There's no way  _Once_  will win Best Musical," Santana says around a mouthful of carrot and dip.

They're having a Tonys viewing party, though it will just be the three of them. Rachel was invited to the one Jason is hosting at his parents' home on the Upper East Side, and it's supposed to be a pretty big event. But a pretty big event involves people from across NYADA, including a certain upperclasswoman Santana is trying to avoid.

Sure, she could go alone, but this is Santana's first Tony Awards, and she's not going to leave her in the hands of Kurt Hummel, who still refuses to agree with her that Megan Hilty is wasted on  _Smash_  and is therefore completely unqualified to teach Santana anything about  _anything_.

"What?" Santana asks when Rachel doesn't reply.

"Nothing," she says, faking a nonchalant tone. "I just think it's cute that you have so many opinions about this after six months."

"It's not  _cute_ , I'm not cute!"

Santana's so incredibly easy to tease, and Rachel finally feels like she's worked out how to do it without it ending in Santana threatening to cut all of Rachel's hair off while she's sleeping.

"And I'm allowed to have opinions. I mean we've seen every one of the shows nominated. I can have opinions!"

"Of course you can," Rachel says, giving up on trying to open the bottle ofsparkling wine she bought for the evening and handing it over to Santana. "Either way, though, you're wrong. You only loved  _Porgy and Bess_  so much because Audra McDonald was so good. That's not enough to make up for the average stage direction."

"Whatever, I still think it will win. Here," she shoves the opened bottle back at Rachel. "Will that get me enough points to earn my lesbian badge yet?"

"I think a U-Haul is a mandatory requirement for that one," she replies, bringing some glasses down from the shelf.

Santana's head whips around to stare at her. "Look at you with the lingo and the in-jokes. Only you would go to musical theater college and make friends with the lesbians instead of the gays."

"Don't be crass," Rachel rebuffs, even though, well, it's true. But she already found, if you'll excuse the expression, the fag to her hag, and even though Jason has become a friend, she's found herself with a group of female friends for the first time in her life. And yes, some of them are lesbians, but so what?

"She doesn't know how," Kurt calls from somewhere in the apartment, "no one ever taught her."

"Would you hurry up, please, it's about to start!"

"As if shouting like barbarians is so much more well mannered than I am," Santana says, addressing an invisible audience.

…

"Told you!" Rachel crows. She can't help it, she's drunk and she was right.

"Oh, shut up." Santana tosses a pillow at her, which is apparently her new thing.

"When have I  _ever_  shut up?" Rachel asks, stumbling around the coffee table and heading to the bathroom.

"You know, that was surprisingly self-aware for Rachel," she hears Kurt say, followed by Santana's murmur of agreement.

"I can still hear you," she points out.

"You should think about that fact when you start singing Shania Twain songs in the shower on the mornings you have dance class."

She hates them both so much right now, and she silently tosses the roll of toilet paper at the bathroom door, ignoring their laughter on the other side.

…

…

"There's an exhibition on at MoMA that I want to see. And I know you hate modern art—"

"A trash can is not art!"

"—but this," Rachel continues from where she's sitting in the kitchen, "is 'an operatic twenty-five minute slide show pairing images of art hanging in the Louvre with Goldin's photographs of life lived at full tilt.'"

Summer vacation in New York might actually be her favorite thing about college. Nothing really opens until midday anyway, so she can sleep as late as she wants and still spend all day exploring the City now that she has the time to do so.

Mostly that's involved doing anything that's not in Bushwick, which has been overrun by the fairweather hipsters who usually have to go  _away_  once the weekend is over. She's concerned Santana's going to start throwing things at the ones who frequent the bar on their block.

Not that she wants to move—the locals are fun, once you get past the blatant disregard for haircare.

"Are you just reading me a review from the New York Times?"

_Damn_ ; she didn't think Santana would notice. "Maybe. Look, will you come with me or not?"

"What's it actually about?"

Rachel gathers up her laptop, taking it in to where Santana's standing in front of the vanity in her bedroom, getting ready for an audition.

"It's just some photographs," she replies as she shoves a pile of clothes out of the way so she can sit on Santana's bed.

Santana recaps the lipstick she was using, spinning around to look at Rachel. "So why do you even want to go?"

She clicks through the MoMA website, ignoring the way Santana's eyeing her. "Kurt was supposed to come with me, but he's busy and it finishes tomorrow."

"But that's not  _why_  you want to go," Santana says, taking the computer away from her and kneeling on the mattress in its place. Her finger presses against Rachel's forehead, tilting her head up. "Spill."

"Jonathan—"

"Oh god, a  _boy_ ," Santana cries, pushing her backwards, and going back to the vanity. "Rachel, if some guy wants to talk about 'art' with you," Santana groans, fingers forming airquotes, "he's probably too pretentious to know how what the G-spot is. Don't waste your time."

"Are you done?" she asks, struggling to sit back up. "Jonathan as in Jason's boyfriend. You've met him."

Santana's head turns, eyeing her in profile. "Oh. Continue."

"He was just talking about this the other day, and it sounded interesting is all. Michaela and, um, some of the others, they'd been to see it a couple of weeks ago."

"Aw," Santana says, fake pout reflecting in the mirror. "And poor baby Rachel had no idea what the grown ups were talking about."

"Shut up," she snaps. "If you don't want to come, fine. I just thought you might have been interested, but whatever." She climbs off the bed, grabbing her laptop to leave.

"Oh, calm down, I'll come with you. Now, seriously, what is this thing about?"

Rachel pauses by the doorway, fingers blindly reaching for the gap between the sheets. "I honestly have no idea," she says quickly, ducking between the sheets before Santana can actually laugh right in her face.

...

Santana has to work in the morning, so it's late afternoon when they finally make it to Midtown.

"If we have to be here, I'm going to Bergdorfs," Santana says on the train, and Rachel finds herself the unwilling second opinion as Santana tries on fourteen different dresses that all basically look the same.

"If we don't leave now," Rachel eventually snaps, "we're going to miss it, and then I'll be mad at you. Is that what you want?"

It's not the last screening for the day that they make it to, and Santana's got a giant carry bag tucked under her seat, so Rachel thinks they can both call the day a success.

…

"That was, um," Santana says, stepping around a group of tourists as they leave MoMA and head towards the Park.

"Yeah," Rachel says, for lack of anything else to add. She probably should have taken Kurt, because—

"You took me to see boobs," Santana says, wonderingly, and a family of tourists standing at the crosswalk with them stares.

"I didn't know!" Rachel say as she hurries across the street before the staring family either starts yelling at them or takes their picture.

"There was a  _lot_  of nakedness," Santana says, trailing after her, and Rachel thinks she might actually be scandalized.

They set up in the middle of Sheep Meadow, Rachel pulling a thin, brightly patterned blanket from her purse that she bought for exactly this purpose. She lies on her back across the soft material, head pillowed on her arms and the sun at a blinding angle behind where Santana stands, kicking off her shoes.

"How did your audition go?"

"Okay," Santana says, eyes fixed on where she's wiping the grass from her heel. Rachel probably could have guessed that was all she'd get as an answer even before it happens.

"What'd you sing?" Rachel asks, and then counts in her head,  _3... 2... 1..._.

"None of your business," Santana says, sinking down beside her, skirt bunched in her fist. She stretches out beside Rachel, her head resting on her purse. "I got a callback."

"What?" Rachel shrieks, sitting up, pulling her sunglasses off. "Oh my god, this is amazing!"

Santana just lies there, smirking up at Rachel. "Surprise."

She is surprised, but not because of the callback.

Santana's been spending all her time, when she's not working, in classes for everything; every kind of dance, a couple of acting classes, and singing every day. She's still furiously secretive about some things, but she at least does her vocal exercises at home now. Rachel wants to tell her, more and more each time, that she should try out for NYADA, because she knows Santana would get in, she's got so much potential. But she doesn't feel like it's her place, and she bites her tongue whenever she's struck by the urge to shake Santana until she recognizes her talent.

"You should have  _told_  me," Rachel says, slapping at Santana's shoulder. "We could have celebrated."

"What do you call this?" Santana says, indicating their surroundings. "If you go grab me a hot dog, it'll be a real celebration."

Rachel slips her shoes back on and grabs her wallet. "I'll be right back."

She's halfway to the path when Santana's voice carries across the field. "Plus you already took me to see boobs!"

…

…

"...okay, love you, too," she hears Santana say, struggling through the door with an arm full of groceries and the phone in her hand. "Can you help, please?"

It doesn't sound as well-mannered as the words would indicate.

"What's the matter with you?" Rachel asks, getting up off the couch.

"That was my mother." Santana hands over some of her bags. "It has been  _politely suggested_  that I come home for Fourth of July."

"That sounds ominous."

They move around the kitchen for a moment, putting things away, and they're almost done before Santana speaks again.

"I think she's going to harass me about not doing anything with my life."

That's absolute nonsense, anyone who knows how hard Santana's been working would never suggest that. But she doesn't know Santana's parents, so she stays quiet, settling on a neutral, "You're doing plenty with your life."

"I know that," Santana says, dropping into a chair. "But it's not like I have anything to show for it. At least your dads got to come and see you actually  _do_  something."

"You have that callback," Rachel says, closing the cupboard and coming to sit across from Santana. She watches Santana play with the salt shaker, and a horrible thought occurs to her. "They wouldn't tell you to come home would they?"

"No," Santana replies easily, and the relief Rachel feels is intense. Santana is talented, and leaving New York now would be a terrible mistake. "They're still going to be annoying as fuck about it, though."

Rachel's trying to work out what to say when Santana pushes away from the table.

"I gotta get ready for work," she sighs, tugging off her belt as she heads for the bathroom.

"I should text Kurt and tell him I can be his plus one, now. I'm not going to that other thing on my own."

"Oh my god," Santana says from the other side of the bathroom door, "I know you're only going because I'm not going to be here now, but I wish I was going to be here to see this!"

"Shut up. Isabelle likes me."

The sound of the shower cuts Rachel off before she has a chance to reply to Santana's shouted, "That's because Isabelle is secretly as big a dork as you are."

…

And Santana's kind of right.

Vogue dot com's super exclusive PR extravaganza slash Fourth of July River Cruise is.... She really does not understand fashion, no matter how much Kurt tries with her.

She looks at Kurt over the top of her sunglasses, as they step aboard the ship's deck, and even he's at a loss for words. He'd told her wearing red, white and/or blue would have been crass, but apparently not.

"Let's um," Kurt chews at his lip, pointing at the bar. "Alcohol."

Rachel snaps a picture on her phone of the whole scene, making sure to include Isabelle wearing an Abe Lincoln hat, and sends it to Santana. She gets a "HAHAHA" in reply that goes on for the length of her phone's screen.

She uploads it to Instagram, because even if it's ridiculous there will be people who will think it's impressive. Later, she's hiding from the models and checking her phone to appear busy, and sees Santana retweeted it,  _still loling my head off and wishing i'd been there,_  added to the start.

…

…

"This is bullshit, I'm going back to Lima. They actually have electricity there."

"Please don't start again," Kurt whines. "You've been home twelve hours, I've only seen you for one, and all you've done is complain. And you hate Lima."

"How do we even  _prepare_  for no power?" Santana asks, ignoring Kurt completely as they head down the stairs.

"We buy ice," Rachel says shortly. "We put things that need to stay cold in the ice. We try not to die of boredom."

It's eight in the morning and her clothes are already sticking to her, so she's not really in a fantastic mood to deal with Santana at her most useless. She just needs to get some cold-brew iced coffee into her system, and then she'll be fine.

But right now they each need to haul a bag of ice back to the apartment before the rolling blackouts start and Bushwick turns into something out of _The Walking Dead_ \-- a show she does  _not_  like, but Santana and Kurt insist on watching at a time when she's almost always home. They don't have walls; it's not like she can just go into another room.

"I suppose masturbating to pass the time is out of the question," Santana says thoughtfully.

"Oh my god," Kurt groans, pushing by them both and running down the stairs as Rachel turns on Santana.

"No!" she snaps, "that's not a good way to stay cool."

Honestly, she's the only one around here who thinks things through properly.

…

"What did you even do while you were in Lima?" Kurt asks as they're carrying the ice back, a trail of water dripping behind them. Rachel's arms are burning, and she just wants to get home.

"Other than Fourth of July, mostly listened to my mother tell me I wasn't trying hard enough."

"Yikes."

"Yeah," Santana sighs, pausing to get a better grip on her bag.

"What'd you do for the Fourth?"

"Same as every year," Santana grumbles, struggling with her ice that seems to be melting faster than Rachel's and Kurt's. "Barbeque at Britt's parents."

"How did that go?" Rachel asks, pausing to let Santana catch up.

Santana shrugs. "It was fine."

Rachel blinks at that, because it's not Santana being evasive like she usually is. She wonders what changed, if maybe they—

"She's dating Sam."

"Huh," Kurt says, saving Rachel from having to work out what to say to that.

"It's okay," Santana says, leaning against the wall while Kurt unlocks the door to their building. "He's good to her. That's all I ever wanted."

Rachel trails up the stairs after them, a little amazed at how mature Santana is being about this.

…

With the power going out across the city at different times, there's not much point in going anywhere, and all three of them settle in for the day.

They cover the windows as much as possible with blankets to keep the heat out, and make frozen margaritas before they lose power. Santana's just finished blending the ice when everything goes dead.

"Drinking time," she shouts, even though it's completely unnecessary.

It's only 10am, but what else is there to do?

…

"I have an announcement to make."

The floorboards beneath her back are starting to warm, so she shuffles to the side, bumping into Santana who's lying on the cool floor with her. The only response she gets is a sound of annoyance, but Santana moves her arm over anyway.

"We already know you're gay, Fairy Bread."

Rachel smothers a chuckle. It's too hot to laugh, anyway.

"Ha. Ha," Kurt says, devoid of any amusement, before sucking in a breath. "As I was trying to say -- I'm moving out."

At this point she'd like to admit up front that she's a little drunk. In her defence, it's hot and there's no power, and it's really, really  _hot_. Besides, someone had to drink the margaritas Santana made. But she doesn't care how hot it is, he can't just leave them, and she finds enough energy to say so.

…

She has more energy than she thought, and it ends up taking her a while to express all her reasons why Kurt can't go.

…

"Look, Rachel," Kurt interrupts eventually, "I know this is inconvenient, but you'll just be going back to paying as much rent as you were before Santana got here."

She plants her hands on her hips, annoyed that he's being deliberately obtuse. "That's  _not_  the only reason I want you to stay," she frowns. It's not; she has many, and she's only halfway through her mental list.

"Well maybe you shouldn't have led with that as your argument."

"And maybe  _you_  shouldn't have led with wanting to move to be closer to your  _gym_."

"Santana," Kurt says, deliberately turning away from Rachel. "You've been quiet on the matter."

Santana's still on the floor, though she moved to slump against the couch around the time they started arguing about Kurt's need for "better gay options" than Brooklyn has to offer. She stops flipping through the pages of the copy of The Advocate she found on the coffee table, and gives Kurt quite a lucid glance for someone who's had far more to drink than Rachel has so far.

"You're leaving me here alone with  _Rachel_ , so of course I'm mad," she says, sounding decidedly not, and Rachel rolls her eyes good naturedly before going back to glaring at Kurt.

"But, I don't know," Santana shrugs, "I get the need to be where the people are, if that's your sort of thing."

"Really," Kurt says. "So why aren't you living in Park Slope?"

"Please," Santana scoffs. "This is as close to that hotbed of lesbian domesticity as I want to be on a permanent basis." She turns the page of the magazine, peering at it intently. "For now, anyway."

"Okay," Rachel cuts in, "that's not the point."

"What is the point?"

Rachel sighs. "I really like that extra $250 a month--  _ow!_ "

Why does she live with two people who like to throw pillows at her so much? Then she remembers that soon it will only be one, and she starts to cry.

…

"So," Santana says, dropping down to sit next to Rachel on the fire escape. "You gonna cry again?"

It's still disgustingly hot, the sun burning brightly even though it's mid-evening, and she watches Santana push her glasses up her nose.

"Look, I know this isn't what you signed up for. But even split two ways, this place is a bargain, and—  _this place is our home now_ ," she says heavily. "How can Kurt just leave like this?"

"Please don't start crying again," Santana says dryly. She kicks her feet up onto the railing, balancing her drink on her knee. "Why do you think I need convincing to stay?" she asks.

Rachel's head jerks to the side, blinking against the sun to capture the edge and curve of Santana's face. "I—"

But she doesn't have an answer, not one that doesn't make her sound like the insecure girl from Ohio that she's not, anyway. She looks away, not really sure how to fill the awkward silence that's growing.

She can hear Santana finish her drink, and then, quietly, "I don't."

"Oh," Rachel says, looking to where Santana's head is tilted back against the bricks.

"You're not the only one who thinks of this place as our home, you know." Santana turns to look at Rachel, and she can see that Santana's just as hurt by Kurt leaving as she is.

She can't help herself, because sometimes she forgets that Santana has just as many feelings as she does—possibly more, which is a scary thought—and she wraps her arm around Santana's neck, pulling her into a messy hug.

"Ugh, stop it!" Santana cries. "You're squashing my glasses!"

For whatever reason, Rachel finds that hilarious, even as Santana pushes her away roughly.

"God, see if I ever tell you about how I feel ever again," Santana grumps, moving away, but not very far.

…

The sun's finally starting to set before either of them feels the need to speak again.

"So," Rachel nudges Santana's side, "Park Slope some day, huh?"

Santana's face scrunches up in annoyance, but Rachel can tell it's at herself more than anything. " _Maybe_ ," she eventually concedes. "I don't know. At this point I'm going to end up marrying myself."

"We have to find you a nice Jewish girl," Rachel says. "Actually, there was this girl in one of my dance classes—"

"Oh please," Santana laughs over the top of her, "Are you just gonna set me up with the lady friendly version of you?"

Rachel frowns, going back to her drink. What does Santana even mean by that?

"Hey," Santana nudges her. "I'm just kidding. That wouldn't be the worst thing."

She can't help the blush in her cheeks at Santana's words, even if she's just being nice.

"Oh hey, you know the upside to Kurt leaving?" Santana asks, and Rachel immediately laughs because she knows the answer.

"No one freaking out about tampons in the bathroom."

…

…

"If you'd just left your hair as it was, we wouldn't be running late!"

People near them on the train are side-eyeing them, which is the New York equivalent of staring, but they're running really late and Rachel doesn't care, she hates not being on time. It's rude. They haven't seen Kurt since he moved out a week ago and she wants to be on time.

"I wasn't leaving the house with my hair looking like a wet mop!" Santana says as they come up onto the street. Rachel's phone starts vibrating with text alerts, Kurt wondering where they are, but it'll be quicker to just walk there than to stop and text him back, so she steers them quickly down the sidewalk.

"Excuse me for caring what I look like when I leave the house," Santana says, pulling the door to the restaurant open, waiting for Rachel to go in ahead of her.

Rachel pauses in the doorway, looking back at Santana, eyeing her up and down with a narrowed look. "You have a date after this, don't you."

"Okay,  _how_  do you know that?" Santana asks incredulously, ushering Rachel through the door.

She spots Kurt sitting off to the side, and heads in his direction. "I have my ways," she says, before turning to greet Kurt.

"What is it, though? Does my dress scream 'fuck me, please'? Or is it my hair?" She pauses and lets Kurt kiss her cheek. "Seriously, what is it?"

"What's going on?" Kurt asks, laughing a little nervously.

"Santana has a  _date_ ," Rachel says, mock scandal in her voice. "Find out who it's with while I go to the bathroom. Order for me, please," she adds in Santana's direction, before heading towards the back of the restaurant.

…

Before she even gets back to the table she can tell something's wrong.

It's not even her sixth sense, she can see them whispering harshly as she squeezes between chairs, and they both promptly shut up when she gets closer to the table.

"Everything okay?" she asks, slipping into her seat.

"Fine," Kurt says, voice tight and fake.

"Just dandy," Santana says sarcastically.

Their food arrives, and the grilled polenta Santana ordered for her is amazing, but she carries the entire conversation and then Santana makes her escape.

She's not even out the door when Rachel turns on Kurt. "What happened while I was gone?"

"Nothing," he says, glaring at the door. But she looks at him closer, and he's not mad, he actually looks worried.

"Kurt," she says, hand on his wrist. "Is something wrong with Santana?"

"No," he says, finally looking at her. "No, nothing's wrong. I just said something I shouldn't have. You know how she is."

"That I do," she says, patting his hand. "It'll be fine, she'll get over it."

…

…

It changes regularly, but today her favorite thing about New York is being able to buy a fresh bagel every day without even leaving her block. It's the one thing she can actually make on her own that she genuinely enjoys, and she's going to make the most of it. Breakfast for lunch is also her favorite, but that's got nothing to do with New York and everything to do with breakfast foods.

She's just dropping the bagel into the toaster when Santana bolts through the apartment shouting about something, before she disappears behind the bathroom door.

Someone's going to be late for work.

There's nothing on tv, which is the excuse she's sticking to if anyone asks why she's watching E! -- damn Santana and her strange obsession with the Kardashians that has somehow infected Rachel, too.

"Rachel, have you seen my hairspray?" Santana shouts through the door.

"It's in your bedroom," she shouts back, licking the last of the cream cheese from her fingers.

"Thanks," Santana tosses at her, hurrying through the living area.

Now that Kurt's gone, a few things have changed. For one, they have an actual living room again now that Santana's moved into Kurt's former space. They also have twice as much space in the bathroom, some of which Santana gleefully filled with tampons, because Kurt had chosen to live that particular gay cliche with a passion Rachel had never seen, and it just hadn't been worth the fight to keep them shoved in a drawer. Having only ever lived with men before, Rachel had just assumed a certain level of discretion was normal, but living with Santana has opened her eyes. Now that Kurt's gone, especially, it's like some final barrier has disappeared and…

Apparently that final barrier was Santana wearing clothes in the common area, because those have definitely disappeared.

And then Santana's back again, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

Rachel's a little confused about how she's supposed to feel about this development.

…

…

"Oh my god, I want Kurt back," she groans, even as her hand clamps over her mouth.

Since his departure, it's become apparent who actually did all the cleaning around the apartment. The inside of the oven is currently making her want to vomit, and she still has the bathroom to do.

_BRING HOME MORE BLEACH_ , she texts Santana.

_would a please kill you?_  pops up on her screen a moment later.

She doesn't reply.

Santana may be incredibly attractive but that doesn't mean she can get away with being a pain in the ass.

…

"Are you serious right now?"

"This is how I'm repaying you, take it or leave it," Santana offers from where she's lying on the couch. Her laptop is open to Seamless, and apparently that is all Rachel is getting as thanks for cleaning the entire apartment.

"Can you at least get Roberta's? That other place made me sick last time."

"We don't want that before the in-laws arrive," Santana says drolly. "What do you want on it?"

"The same as always," Rachel calls out from her room, pulling on a pair of pajamas. She's so done with this day, and if Santana doesn't let her watch  _Funny Girl_ , there's going to be a problem.

"Veggie with no cheese?"

She sighs heavily, and grabs a hair tie before leaving her room. "Cheese will be fine."

Santana's head appears over the back of the couch, frowning at her in confusion. "Really?"

She loops the hair tie around and around her hair until her finger's almost trapped.

"Yes, really," she replies, dropping onto the couch and covering her face with her hands. "Please don't— whatever you're going to say, I've probably already said it to myself."

She's incredibly embarrassed by how weak she feels giving up being a vegan, like she's been a liar this whole time. But it's hard, and expensive, and during semester she just didn't have the time to look after herself properly. She'd cheated, over and over again, and there's no point pretending to be something she's not anymore—she just has to deal with saying it outloud.

Her eyes are burning, and she presses against them harder, because she's not going to cry about this in front of Santana, she's not—

"Hey," Santana says softly, hands pulling gently at her wrists. "It's okay if you want to be a filthy meat eater like the rest of us."

Rachel laughs a little wetly, mostly at the face Santana's pulling. "It's not that," she says, shaking her head, looking away. "I just don't want people to think I wasn't sincere."

Santana's mouth draws in tight and she ducks her head to meet Rachel's eyes. "I don't think anyone would ever have a problem believing you mean something when you say it."

She wipes at the couple of tears that have escaped, and Santana catches the last one on her jaw.

"God, only you could make ordering pizza this dramatic," Santana says, and pulls Rachel against her. "What are we going to do with you?"

"Feed me," Rachel mumbles, snuggling against Santana's shoulder. "That's all I want right now."

…

Santana even stays and watches  _Funny Girl_  with her after they've eaten, which she never does because, "Why would I want to watch a movie about  _you_?"

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo.... happy one year and two days anniversary since i last updated this. i've no excuses except that the body was willing but the spirit was weak.
> 
> many, MANY thanks to bee and liz for their help and cheerleading.
> 
> oh, i should also mention i've gone back and edited the first three parts. there's a somewhat substantive change in part 3, in terms of ~feelings towards the end of the part.

They fall into a new routine so easily that Rachel blinks and Kurt's been gone for a month.

 _Can you get mustard_ , Santana will text her—or anchovies, or a tub of peanut butter, or one time it was three tomatoes that are still a little green—and Rachel will grab them from the Whole Foods at Union Square on her way home from the summer dance class she signed up to once she realized there was a possibility she'd have Cassandra July for dance again next year.

Santana makes dinner whenever she's home in the evenings, which is every night except Mondays and Wednesdays when she has a shift at Starbucks and whenever she goes out, in which case Rachel's with her anyway. Rachel started out helping, but even as an assistant she still manages to almost burn the apartment down. Now she's allowed to sit in the kitchen and watch, and the closest Santana allows her to the food is when she offers Rachel a taste.

She picks up bell peppers tonight, which probably means something from Santana's book of her mom's recipes, and she's practically drooling the entire train home at the possibility. She honestly doesn't know what she's going to do when they stop living together.

"What are you making?" she asks as soon as she's through the door, finding Santana leaning over a pot of something on the stove, hair tied up in a scarf that Rachel thinks came from Kurt's closet.

"Surprise," Santana says, taking the grocery bag from Rachel. "But tell me what you think."

She dips the spoon into the simmering pot and holds it out for Rachel to sip from, and Rachel can accept not knowing what it is because whatever it is tastes _amazing_.

"Good?" Santana asks and then takes a sip herself, and Rachel watches as Santana's tongue darts out to chase a drop as it trickles down the spoon's handle and onto her fingers, letting out a hum of pleasure when she catches it.

The whole thing is obscene, and Rachel stares, breath leaving her as the image of Santana doing that in a completely different context floods her mind, which is, uh—

"I'm going to take a shower," she says hurriedly, and flees, tossing a distracted, "it tastes great," over her shoulder before slamming the bathroom door closed.

…

She manages to pull herself together, and the evening continues as it would on any other night when Rachel hasn't imagined her roommate doing, um, things.

It's a Tuesday, so Santana's picked what they're watching, because they don't thumb wrestle for it anymore—not since Rachel's thumb was almost broken that time a rerun of _My Name is Barbra_ was on cable at the same time as Stephanie March's return to _SVU_ —and they're both just sitting in their usual places on the couch, drinking the same shitty wine they've been drinking all summer because it's the cheapest bottle at the bodega across the street.

A perfectly normal Tuesday evening.

Except she's sitting there pretending to watch _Selena_ for what would have to be the third time this month—and seriously, if Santana ever makes fun of how often Rachel watches _Funny Girl_ , she's getting a punch in the teeth—because Santana's nodded off, and has spent the last fifteen minutes tilting further and further to the side until right around the time Selena's murdered on screen, at which point she'd slumped completely against Rachel, snuggling into her side.

It's not as though she's never seen Santana sleeping before. They fall asleep on the couch at least once a week—it's practically part of their routine. But she can't help but look up close like this, her face smoothed from it's usual scowl or smirk, the curve of her mouth a little softer. Rachel knows the harsh lines are a very real part of Santana, but this side of her is there, too, and she can't look away, even as Santana shifts in her sleep.

There must be something wrong with her. It must be a week before her period, or she's crossed some threshold since she last had sex, or _something_ , because that's the only explanation for the way her entire body throbs with heat just from Santana nuzzling against her chest, her cheek brushing against the top of Rachel's breast.

Her skin is _so_ soft, Rachel kind of just wants to…

"Ungh," Santana groans, and rolls back against the couch to blink groggily at Rachel. "Why didn't you wake me?"

…

As a modern, single woman she knows how to take care of herself.

So she does. Repeatedly.

…

…

After a long and difficult conversation with herself, Rachel comes to the conclusion that…

...she has no idea what's going on with her.

Well, not _no_ idea. A partial idea. A confusing, awkward, partial idea. She maybe, possibly, could potentially have some kind of sexual inclination towards Santana. Even thinking it has her rolling over to bury her face in her pillow, grateful that Santana is at work as she groans in frustration.

It's not the whole female thing of it all that has her in such a flutter. It's not.

It's the fact that, at nineteen, if it was going to happen, surely it would have already happened, right? She's always been open to the possibility, and it's just never been there. But she feels as though her eyes have been opened to new possibilities, or at least Santana-shaped possibilities, and she's not at all sure what to do about it.

…

So, she's conducting an experiment of sorts.

The McCarren Park pool is— well, it's free, so she puts up with the overwhelming number of people encroaching on her space in exchange for a conveniently located place to escape the heat even for a moment. The cheap little box unit the three of them split the cost on at the start of summer died that morning, and they're going to replace it on the weekend before her parents arrive. Until then it's the pool while Santana's in class, and then the two of them are going to try not to annoy their regular server at the diner while they hang around until it's dark and therefore cooler in the apartment.

And it does offer her an opportunity to attempt to… experiment. It's for science, is what she tells herself, laid out on one of the pool lounges, as her eyes, hidden behind her sunglasses, shift from one person to the next, taking in the different curve of hips and swell of breasts on display.

There's this girl standing at the edge of the pool, and objectively Rachel can see that she's gorgeous. Tall and blonde, with skin the color of coffee the way Kurt drinks it and an even darker bikini that covers basically nothing, Rachel guesses she's close to her age, but she holds herself with a confidence that's impressive.

And all she can think as she takes in the sight of this beautiful woman is, _this is wrong, this is wrong, I am so sorry for looking at you like this, this is so, so wrong._

When the girl turns around to talk to someone lounging a few chairs away, Rachel almost blurts out an apology, because not only does she feel like a pervert, but it's not even doing anything for her. She's failing at being a perv! She should probably take some kind of comfort from that, but all it does is annoy her, because she's at a loss for what to do next. She could go out and hook up with some random girl at a club, but she's not comfortable with being honest enough to not be misleading in that situation. There's always prostitutes, which Rachel is fully supportive of in a safe, appropriately compensated, and properly regulated environment, but the whole idea is so unappealing she doesn't think there would be any possibility of achieving the desired outcome.

By the time she meets up with Santana at the diner that night she's worked herself into such an aggravated state, she's not even thinking about the actual, Santana-shaped problem anymore.

"What's wrong?" Santana asks, tucking away the book she was reading as Rachel slips into their regular booth.

"How do you even know something's wrong?" Rachel retorts, her purse taking the full brunt of her aggression as she shoves it to the back of the booth.

"Well, you don't usually commit assault and battery on your personal belongings. But you also have this little tell," Santana says, leaning across the table to brush her thumb across Rachel's brow, tracing along the crease there. "Right here. Now tell Aunty 'Tana what's wrong."

"I can't," she says, firstly because that would be embarrassing as hell, but also because, "I don't _know_ what's..." She hesitates at calling it something wrong. It's not wrong, it's just different and confusing. "...going on," she finishes flatly, trying not to let the knot of tension push her into a bout of tears.

Santana sits in silence for a moment, watching Rachel fidget with her silverware, before she shuffles out of her side of the booth and then back in beside Rachel.

"Whatever it is," she says, her arm slipping around Rachel's shoulder. "Once you're done over-analyzing it to death, and sung at _least_ three songs about it, you'll work it out eventually. Unless it's the IRS, you've probably got time."

She chokes on a laugh, and even as her skin tingles where Santana's rubbing her shoulder, she feels that tension start to unravel. She leans into Santana's side and remembers that, before anything else, this is her friend and everything else is irrelevant.

"You think you know me so well," she says, and Santana twists around to look Rachel in the eye, even as her arm stays around Rachel.

"I know you so well I can tell you right now, if I have to hear whatever soundtrack you've decided fits this situation more than twice, I will smother you with a pillow."

She hasn't even decided if _Wicked_ or _Spring Awakening_ is more appropriate. "Shut up," she huffs, nudging Santana even as she curls further into her side.

…

…

"How do you feel about a free dinner at The Dalloway?"

"And hello to you, too, Santana," Rachel says, rolling her eyes at Santana's complete lack of phone manner. She's sitting on the fire escape waiting for her toe nails to dry, but the glass of wine she's had lets her ignore Santana's ever-present rudeness. "How exactly am I getting a free dinner at The Dalloway?"

"Michaela's agent. Something about bumping into someone there to set up a meeting, or something; I don't know. You can finally meet Celia, too." Celia is Michaela's girlfriend who Rachel doesn't actually believe is real, but who Santana adores to the point where Rachel maybe hates a person who might not exist. "The point is, free food and lesbians. I don't even know which part of that sentence I enjoy more," Santana sighs happily. "Just get into something hot and then get over here."

It's just a coincidence that Santana's taking her to the current lesbian hot spot, she decides, because it's not as if she's done anything to give away her current state of sexual upheaval.

…

"I don't like oysters," Santana says, head bent down to speak quietly against Rachel's ear.

Rachel hisses a distracted, "what?" in Santana's direction, but she thinks the person at the table across from them is Portia de Rossi, and that is definitely not Ellen she's sitting with, and, "Oh my god, Santana, is Portia cheating on Ellen right in front of us?"

"What— That's not Portia. She cut her hair. Here," Santana says, and deposits her two oysters on Rachel's plate. "Don't say I never give you anything."

"Okay, this is a total bust," Michaela says from across the table, and Rachel spares a final look at Not Portia de Rossi before bringing her attention back to the table.

"Let's go meet everyone at Glossy. We're way overdressed, so at least Santana _might_ ," Celia says with a dubious look, "actually get some for once."

"I get plenty, thank you very much," Santana says with an indignant toss of her hair, and Michaela snickers violently, choking on her mouthful of cocktail.

" _Whe_ —" Rachel starts to say, because seriously, _when?_ , but Santana's hand covers her mouth, and Rachel's squeal of indignation is how they end up being asked to leave. They walk the handful of blocks to Glossy, and Santana complains the whole way until Celia tells her to shut the fuck up, at which point Rachel decides Celia is her new favorite person for the night.

"You've got your own girl," Santana pouts when Celia takes Rachel by the arm, dragging her, laughing, further down the street.

"Now I've got two!" Celia shouts, and pulls Rachel along behind her when Santana chases after them.

…

"Sorry we left you behind," she says to Michaela when they're waiting for drinks, but she waves Rachel off.

"Don't worry about it." They stand, waiting, Michaela looking out at the dance floor while Rachel pays for her drink. "She was so serious when she got here; it's good to see Santana having fun." There's a pause, and Michaela's tone changes. "Maybe too much fun."

Rachel follows her line of sight, spotting Santana dancing all up on a tall blonde that could almost pass for Brittany, and she winces until Santana turns, grinning so wide that Rachel sighs in relief. "Yeah," she says, and Michaela eyes her solidly. "Oh, no. Not like that."

She's at a loss for how to explain what's going on in her head, or not, as the case may be, but the bartender delivers their shots, and after they down them Michaela just takes her by the hand and shouts, "Come dance."

'Everyone', like Celia said, is there, and she feels good dancing with this group of women she's come to really like. It's almost a relief, because she'd been concerned, or at least uncomfortably curious, to see if anything would be different in a situation where she knows there could be interest. Not that she thinks that just because someone's bisexual or a lesbian they're going to be interested in her, but they might be! And she thought it might have made a difference.

It hasn't though, and she lets it go.

Or she tries to, until she finds herself dancing with Maria.

Rachel barely even knows her beyond the fact that she's Michaela's friend and that she and Santana had some kind of… thing. Apparently they danced together that night at Le Bain, but Rachel doesn't remember that at all, though apparently Maria does, because she's working against Rachel's body like she knows what she's doing and— oh, the hands on her hips trail up around to press against her back and…

"Oh," she says dazedly, and Maria tilts her head forward, and, "Oh!"

Maria pauses, even as she keeps them both moving to the beat where they're practically fused together at the hips. "What's wrong?"

"I can't make out with you!" Maria givers her a look like she's crazy, and Rachel continues. "You slept with Santana. I'm not making o—"

The way Maria doubles over laughing is unexpected.

"Santana and I never slept together," Maria chokes out through her laughter, and Rachel's surprise must be written all over her face. "Honey, your roommate had a truckload of things going on back then. Not cute."

"Oh," Rachel says dumbly. "I thought you did."

"Well we didn't," Maria says, pulling Rachel in close again. She's incredibly cute, Rachel realizes, and it's weird that she never noticed before now. "It's okay if you don't want me to kiss you. If it wasn't just the Santana thing."

"There is no Santana thing," she says, and lets the arms around her settle more firmly, moving them back into the beat. "There is a— thing, though. Is it okay if I want to do this when I don't know if I want to do this? Wait, I mean." Her words are a jumble and she sighs, trying to gather her thoughts around the music rattling her brain almost as much as this situation.

"If you just want to know," Maria says against Rachel's ear, "that's okay."

It's easier standing as they are, without having to meet her eyes, when she asks, "Really?"

"I'm definitely not going to sleep with you to help you find the answer," Maria laughs, her breath tickling Rachel's neck. "But I like kissing."

She can't believe she's nervous.

The kiss is slow and warm and, like her partner, Rachel also really likes kissing. But she knew that already, and when Maria pulls back Rachel blushes at the appreciative look she receives, presses another kiss against Maria's slightly smudged lipstick. "That was nice," she says, and Maria laughs.

"You're annoyingly cute for a girl who doesn't know if she wants to make out with me."

Rachel shrugs at that, realizing she's known she'd enjoy kissing people, and not just boys, for as long as she's known what kissing was. She likes kissing, and she probably likes everything else with people, too, but she's a little more selective about that, so it'll just have to wait.

…

…

"Daddies!" she calls excitedly, meeting them halfway down the stairs.

Her fathers haven't visited since her show. Not that she's visited them either; her interest in returning to Lima has dwindled from zero to whatever is less than zero on that scale. But still, now that they're here, she feels overly-excited to see them and she nearly trips as she practically leaps from the final step to the landing.

"Hi, baby girl," Hiram says, wrapping her in a hug and lifting her off her feet. She squeals at him to put her down, which he does, but his arm stays snug around her and she doesn't protest. She's not embarrassed by how much she misses her parents, even with Santana watching.

"Can I help with your bags, Mister Berrys?" Santana asks from the top of the stairs, and Leroy chuckles.

"You may, if you stop calling us that, Santana."

Santana actually blushes, and Rachel can't help but laugh at how awkward Santana still is around her parents. Santana came to breakfast with them the morning after Rachel's first show, and it's the only time she's actually seen Santana on her best behavior. It was incredibly disturbing.

Her parents are actually staying at the apartment, and it's sent her into a spiral of panic, but she was the one who made the offer in a fit of excitement that they were coming in the first place, and she thinks Leroy only accepted to see what she'd do.

"Oh, challenge accepted," Santana had practically snarled when Rachel told her what was going on. Santana's dad being a colleague-turned-"our daughters live together so we chat in the hallways" friend with Leroy has absolutely nothing to do with it, Rachel's absolutely sure. Somehow this still didn't translate into her helping Rachel to clean the apartment.

"I think if she carries our bags upstairs she can call us whatever she wants," Hiram says, winking at Rachel.

Rachel slaps at his arm. "Dad, be nice."

The two of them reassembled the space that used to be Santana's bedroom before she moved into Kurt's so her parents would have somewhere to sleep, and seeing the living area back like it was is making her nostalgic for something that ended only weeks ago, but then her dad sits on their couch with his feet on the coffee table and it feels like every day when she'd come home from school and they'd watch whatever had been on TCM the night before.

She curls up beside Hiram on the couch, head resting on his shoulder, and tries to remember what it was like to be that little girl whose toughest decision was whether she would marry Ewan McGregor before or after she'd won her first Tony. It's impossible though, and she shifts her legs so Santana can sit down.

...

Hiram makes dinner and she almost cries at the smell of vegan lasagna filling the apartment, even if the heat is making her sweat.

"Santana, what are your plans for next year?" Leroy asks as she and Santana set the table, and Rachel watches her eyeball the back of Leroy's head from where she's standing behind him with a stack of plates in her hand.

"I, um." Santana licks her lip nervously. "I haven't decided yet."

"Are you still thinking about applying to NYADA? Your father mentioned you were, but that you hadn't—"

"Yeah," Santana cuts in quickly. "Yeah, I'm thinking about it. You know, lots of options out there."

Rachel stops in the middle of whatever she was doing—she's holding a pile of napkins, so maybe it was that—and blinks stupidly at Santana, who's looking at her nervously from across the table.

"Yeah?" she asks, smile pulling at her face before she even knows why.

Santana's teeth sink into her lip and she nods, looking frightened and determined all at once, and Rachel's flooded with so much pride she feels like crying. Underneath that, though, is relief that she hadn't harassed Santana about applying yet. She can see on Santana's face that she wants this, and it's not some half-hearted attempt made because of Rachel's cajoling.

"You're gonna get in," Rachel says, coming around the table to pull Santana into a hug. The fear and fight are still there when she pulls back, but Santana finally looks a little pleased, too.

…

"Okay, hold up!" Santana says, standing a little in her place at the table, leaning against Rachel's shoulder. "So then Rachel goes up to her, and is like, 'If you fail me, I'm going to report you to the school, because I know that was better than a pass.'"'

Her parents are eating up Santana's retelling of her final encounter with Cassandra July, Hiram laughing as much at Rachel's antics as Santana's terrible impression of her, while Leroy just shakes his head even as he grins at her.

"Stop it," she says, slapping Santana's arm and resisting the urge to melt into the floor, because, really, her parents don't need to hear this.

"How do you even know all this?" she asks Santana, standing to gather the plates and put an end to what's turned into an evening of Let's Tell Embarrassing Stories About Rachel. Her dad is already in trouble for telling the story of her second grade Christmas pageant.

"I have my sources," Santana laughs, and Rachel hipchecks her as she gets up to help clear the table. She knows who Santana's sources are, and Jason is in trouble, too, now.

"Who wants the last of the wine?" Rachel asks, knowing it will result in some kind of argument. Her parents "debate" everything, including which one of them will very self-sacrificingly go without a final glass of wine in the evening.

"I can go get another bottle." Santana shuffles behind Rachel to get to the sink, pile of dishes held above their heads. The kitchen's somewhat cramped with four people in it, and she steadies herself with a hand against Rachel's hip as she goes. The touch burns through the material of Rachel's tank, and she nearly drops the glasses in her hands.

"Can you now, young lady?" Leroy says, leaning back in his seat and dragging Rachel's dazed attention away from Santana filling the sink with water.

"No," Santana says quickly, "I mean, I just meant that there's a-- a--"

Rachel shakes her head clear, and can't hold back her laughter at Santana's terrified face, because her daddy is obviously just messing with her.

"It's okay, Santana," Leroy says, winking at Rachel. "If you like, I'll walk with you to wherever this mysterious time portal to two years from now is located."

Santana looks at her pleadingly, like she still has no idea if she's in trouble or not, and Rachel nods towards the door, turning her back to parents to mouth, 'he's harmless.' Her daddy doesn't bite, after all, but he likes to pretend.

She finishes clearing away the table as they leave, Hiram whistling 'Everybody Says Don't' from his spot at the table until she joins in while she starts filling the sink.

"She's performing at Barclays Center, you know."

Rachel rolls her eyes; of course she knows Barbra is going to be doing shows nearby. "No, Dad, I had no idea," she says sarcastically. It's like he doesn't even know her anymore.

"She's rubbing off on you," Hiram says after a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"Santana."

"Ah," she says, focusing on the plate she's washing. "She's a very good roommate, which was surprising."

"Sweetie," he says, and she's startled by his voice so close behind her all of a sudden. "Is something going on with you two?"

The idea of her and Santana, as in _her and Santana_ , is so ridiculous she lets out a burst of laughter. Why would he even think that? For one, she wouldn't keep something like that from her parents, and secondly… _her and Santana_. "Dad, we're just friends."

"Are you sure?" Hiram asks, hand settling on her shoulder.

"I'm sure," she says, looking over her shoulder at him.

There's nothing going on _between_ them; that would be ridiculous. Just because she finds Santana attractive doesn't mean anything. Sometimes she finds _Kurt_ attractive, and okay, sometimes she thinks being his boyfriend would be wonderful, and— okay, _anyway_ , the point is, she doesn't want to date every single person she finds attractive.

"But," she begins slowly. She hadn't planned on bringing this up, but now that the opportunity has presented itself she finds she wants to talk about it. "If I were to, um, _date_ girls, how would you…" She trails off, because Hiram's face is doing that thing it did the day she told her parents she got into NYADA.

"Baby!" he cries excitedly, grabbing her by the arms. "Your father's going to be pissed, he had money on junior year."

"Dad!"

"Okay, okay, but god, why couldn't you have just dated women in high school? At least we wouldn't have had to worry you'd end up pregnant—"

" _Dad!"_

"Sorry!" Hiram says, letting go of Rachel and raising his hands in surrender. "Yes, of course, I love you, you're my daughter, I'll love you no matter what," he recites, and then pauses to ask seriously, "and nothing's going on with you and Santana?"

She almost wishes there were at this point. "No!"

Hiram wraps her in a hug, rubs her back, and kisses her hair, and for a moment she does feel like the child she'd wished to feel like earlier. It's not as comforting as she thought it would be, but she leans into the touch anyway, soaking the affection in.

"Okay, baby girl. You know best." He goes back to his seat. "Besides, she seems like she'd be a lot to handle."

Whatever nostalgic feelings of childhood she was reliving evaporate at that, and she struggles not to choke on her own tongue. Where are Santana and her daddy with the wine, because she really needs to not remember her dad possibly implying Santana would be good in bed, and she's going to need to start working on that now.

…

…

"What should I wear for this audition on Friday?" Santana asks from her side of the apartment.

Rachel rolls her eyes; they've had some variation of this conversation four times now, and she still doesn't understand why Santana's even going on the audition. It's a week until her NYADA audition, and if she gets this, she'll just have to drop out, because classes start in a month and Santana won't have time for the supporting role she's trying out for.

"You're not going to that audition. It's just rude when you can't take the role." She makes a mark on the script she's studying--Ibsen, NYADA's play production for the fall semester--before glancing over the top of it.

"You don't know that; I haven't gotten in yet. I haven't even _auditioned_ yet." Santana appears at the gap between her sheets, holding up two dresses that are equally inappropriate. "But a shitty Off-Off-Off-Broadway part as a stripper? Shoe in!"

"Neither of those," Rachel says dismissively. "And when did you become such an optimist?"

"Excuse you, _rude_ , I've always been a positive ray of sunshine."

"I must be thinking of some other Santana that I knew in highschool," Rachel says to herself, Santana having disappeared back into her room.

It's quiet again and then Santana returns, no clothes in hand this time.

"Can I ask you something?"

Rachel drops her script on her stomach, sitting up because Santana sounds serious. "Sure."

"Do you think I'm wasting my time?" she asks, moving to stand by the couch.

Rachel blinks up at her. "With what?"

"With everything? With acting classes and singing lessons and going on auditions. _You_ don't even go on auditions. Just," she heaves a sigh, dropping onto the couch, "It doesn't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Like this whole year's been a holding pattern until I give in and go to an actual school. And I'm trying to be positive about everything, running myself all over town, but..." she trails off, fidgeting with the sleeve of a ratty old sweatshirt that Rachel swears Santana wears more than she wore her Cheerios uniform in high school.

"Hey," Rachel says, scooting along the couch. "I was just joking."

"I know," Santana nods. "I just—" she blinks, looking at her lap.

Rachel can see she's swallowing tears, and it has her gut twisting in sympathy. "Do you want to know why I don't go on auditions yet?" she asks, biting at her lip. She's not sure what she's going to say yet.

Santana nods, still not looking up.

"I could tell you it's because I'm exhausted from NYADA, and that would be true. But," she says, and is surprised to hear the truth tumble out of her mouth. "Mostly it's because I'm scared."

Santana's eyes dart up. "Really?"

Rachel nods. "Yeah," she says, her heart racing. "At NYADA I'm becoming a big fish again, and I just— I don't want to burst that last bubble yet."

"I had no idea," Santana says after a moment, sitting back against the couch. "You're good at hiding it."

"Maybe," Rachel says, leaning back too, their arms pressing together. "I _am_ a very good actress."

…

…

The day before Santana's audition, she gets a text that just says, _come to the freshman rehearsal spaces_.

Just because she can, she sends back _would a please kill you?_

 _PLEASE._ is all she gets in reply, and Rachel pulls on a pair of shoes and heads for the subway, she's so shocked that Santana's actually resorted to basic manners.

She finds Santana in the end room, a tiny space with sound-proofing and some basic recording equipment that they're not afraid the freshmen will break. Her back's to the window, bent over some sheet music with a pencil shoved through the messy knot of hair piled on her head, and Rachel watches her for a moment before tapping quietly on the glass.

"That was fast," Santana says when she pulls the door open. "I didn't think you'd be here so quickly."

"Well, you made it sound like an emergency."

"Okay," Santana says, ignoring Rachel's comment, "I um— I wanted to show, um, you—" She pauses, and Rachel takes in the way her hands are flitting about as she she moves about the room, straightening the pile of sheet music, and it dawns on her that Santana's actually nervous.

Although she'd never say it, she realizes Santana's intimidated by her talent. A year ago, knowing this would have had her prancing around like a peacock in full-plume. Now, it makes her heart ache, and not just because Santana has gone back to not even doing vocal warm ups around the apartment.

Rachel sets her wallet and keys on the floor, goes over to where Santana looks like she's about to have a very quiet meltdown and takes both her hands. "Calm down," she says, forcing Santana to meet her eyes. "It's just me."

"That's not actually helping."

"Well pretend I'm someone else," Rachel says dismissively, because it's time for Santana to suck it up and accept her destiny and it's also time she got the heck over it and let Rachel hear her sing again. "Now hit play and show me what you've got."

Three and a half minutes later, the final notes of 'With One Look' fading into silence, Rachel wishes she'd at least grabbed her purse before she'd come, because Santana's going to open her eyes any moment now and make so much fun of her for how much she's crying and she doesn't even have a tissue.

Whatever she thought of Santana's talent in high school, whatever she's gleaned from the scraps of singing she's heard since then, none of it comes close to just how _good_ she's become in the last year, it's just—

"Oh my god, it wasn't that bad," Santana snarks when she notices Rachel's tears.

"Shut up," Rachel says, slapping at Santana's arm, "Otherwise I won't tell you what I thought."

The confidence she'd shown in her performance melts away, and Rachel watches Santana wilt in front of her. "So…" she prompts, though she sounds more like she's dreading the answer.

"There's no way you're not getting in," Rachel says, and she grins when Santana actually bounces on her feet a little.

…

Rachel gets a text that just says _I GOT IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ , right as she's about to head into Whole Foods for this watermelon juice she's been drinking by the gallon. She turns around and heads straight back into the subway, slipping into the packed L train as the doors are about to closed, and sprinting the whole way home once she emerges from the Montrose Ave station.

"Oh my god!" she shouts by way of greeting, and Santana tackles her in the doorway, lifts her off her feet and actually spins her around as she makes this overwhelmed noise of happiness that Rachel's never heard her make before. It's hot and she's sticky but she clutches at Santana tightly, letting the moment overwhelm her, too.

"I got in," Santana breathes as she sets Rachel back on her feet. "I got in!"

"I knew you would," she says, laughing at just how obviously happy Santana is. "We have to celebrate. And you have to start practicing for dance! Oh my god, you're going to be expelled if you end up with Cassandra. We'll start tomorrow."

It's going to be so much fun with Santana at NYADA. She loves the friends she's made there—ones she pulls out her phone to text the good news to and see about pulling together something for tonight—but a lot of them were seniors last year, so their numbers will be less. And none of them come close to what she and Santana have.

"I know you've been taking classes, but you really need to be in pointe shoes, and—"

"You've got like a year of repressed guidance just ready to be let out, don't you?" Santana says, but her giddiness cancels out any annoyance she might actually have at Rachel's rambling. "Can we go back to the celebrating part first? You definitely mentioned celebrating, and I am so ready to get my drink on!"

Rachel didn't realize she was living with a Woo! Girl, but the way Santana heads to the refrigerator, arms in the air and shouting, "Woo!" as she goes, Rachel's concerned this is something Santana's kept very well hidden from her until now. If this is the price she has to pay, though, to see Santana this happy, in a way Rachel doesn't think she's seen Santana she arrived in New York, then Rachel will gladly pay it.

…

Kurt arrives with Mark on his arm just as Michaela is popping the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine, and Rachel pulls him into a hug and says, " _C_ ongratulations. Be _nice_ , or else," against his ear.

The look Kurt gives her when they move apart tells her she was right to warn him, but Santana's worked incredibly hard and Kurt abandoned their plan, so if he's going to be an ass then he can just leave.

"I promise," he says, and glances over at Santana. "She's pestered me enough along the way that I'd be a hypocrite to wish she'd failed after all that effort."

Rachel didn't know Kurt had been helping Santana. She's about to ask when that had happened, _why_ that had happened—why hadn't Santana asked _her_?—but glasses start getting passed around, and Rachel finds herself beside Santana as people start to gather.

They toast Santana, and something propels Rachel to step forward, tapping on her glass with her fingernail.

"I just wanted to say," she begins hesitantly, uncertain of her words. "Congratulations, of course. But also that…"

She turns and faces Santana, touches her wrist for just a moment. Santana's head drops, hair falling across her face until she pushes it back, but not even her typical discomfort at attention she didn't ask for can fight the grin off her face. It doesn't matter that Santana didn't ask her for help; what matters is that look of pure happiness of her face.

"...you deserve this. You've worked so hard to do this, and I just know you're going to be amazing. You always have been."

Santana blushes, and it makes Rachel blush as well. She just… she's so _proud_ , she doesn't even know how to put it into words.

Someone coughs, and she realizes they've been standing in silence, and she coughs as well. "And now you're going to kick ass." She raises her glass again, clinking it against Santana's as everyone offers a "cheers!"

…

There are so many people in the apartment she wonders if the cops might show up, but until that happens she's not going to worry. Too much. She's much more interested in finding somewhere to get a breath of fresh air, people having spilled out onto the landing and the fire escape outside the kitchen window.

Her own window's propped open, but people haven't gathered around it, and she pushes through the crowd and clambers out the window and onto the rusty metal platform. It's cool, and she turns her face into the breeze as she's getting to her feet and—

"Boo," Santana says softly from her perch on the ladder, startling Rachel although she was obviously trying to do the opposite.

"Hey, what are you doing out here? There's a whole party inside just for you."

Her gaze flickers away to focus off in the distance. A tiny part of the Manhattan skyline is visible from the fire escape, the very tops of a handful of buildings downtown, but Santana's glaring at them like she's ready to go all Lima Heights, and Rachel imagines she thinks she's staring directly at NYADA.

"This whole NYADA thing," Santana begins, tracing her finger over a bolt in the metal. "What if it's not..." she trails off, shrugging.

Rachel shuffles along the fire escape, leaning against the railing and reaching out to still Santana's nervous hand. "I meant what I said. You're going to kick ass."

Santana's head ducks down, but Rachel can see that pleased little smile again. "You really think so?"

"Yep," Rachel nods, taps at her temple. "Little bit psychic, remember. I know so."

Santana looks at her like she's crazy but she laughs anyway, before falling silent for a moment. "You're not gonna go all _What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_ on me or something, are you?"

"What?" Rachel squeaks. "I would never!"

" _Um_ , Sunshine Cor--"

"Okay!" she interrupts, crossing her arms primly and facing away from Santana, because honestly. One mistake and she's never going to be allowed to forget it. "Okay, point made. Don't you think I've grown up just a little since then?"

Santana doesn't answer, and when Rachel turns back around it's to a look she feels all the way to her toes.

"Maybe just a little," Santana says slowly.

"You—"

"Rach—" Whatever Kurt is calling from the bedroom filters through her brain like white noise, and she almost lurches after Santana as she stands, heading towards the window.

"We should get back," Santana says quietly.

"Yeah," Rachel replies, standing but not going any further. "You don't want to…." But she doesn't finish the thought, instead watching as Santana ducks through the window frame and disappears into the crowd.

She gives herself a moment before going to see what Kurt wants, because she just _needs_ a moment.

…

They're grocery shopping the next day when the thought comes to life in her head.

She's listening to Santana debate the merits of Cap'n Crunch vs Frosted Flakes, and when the sexiness of Tony the Tiger becomes a point of consideration, all Rachel can think is, _God you're adorable and I really want to kiss you_.

It's the adorable part of that thought that tells Rachel she can't ignore this anymore.

"Do we need bread?" Santana asks when she realizes Rachel isn't beside her, and turns around to see her standing somewhat helplessly in the middle of the bakery aisle.

"No," she says, watching Santana stand there in cut-offs and a pair of Uggs, elbows resting on the shopping cart. "No, we need, um."

She looks down at the shopping list in her hand, but the words written in Santana's sloppy scrawl are incomprehensible, and one day their grandchildren are going to ask when she knew, and Rachel's going to have to tell them _this_.

"Hey," Santana says, much closer than she was a moment ago. "You okay?"

 _No!_ her brain helpfully shouts, but she nods and says, "Yeah," because what's she going to do, ask Santana out on a date surrounded by racks of bread? "I think we need milk."


End file.
